


Some Inescapable Truth

by frackingforaffection



Series: Some Inescapable Truth [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Dissociation, Eventual Edelthea, Eventual Sylvix, Pining, Self-Destruction, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Time Travel, War Crimes, eventual dimileth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27925918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackingforaffection/pseuds/frackingforaffection
Summary: The divine pulse started as a crutch, and then it became an addiction.Instead of facing her developing emotions, Byleth has taken to turning back the clock whenever someone has the audacity to make her feel something. Displeased with the abuse of her power, Sothis decides to take time back into her own hands and teach Byleth a lesson about running away from humanity.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Some Inescapable Truth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044879
Comments: 44
Kudos: 59





	1. (Prologue) The Ashen Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth never knew other people could exert such a hold on her. Her emotions had always been a solid wall, immovable and unshakeable. But ever since coming to the monastery, they felt more and more like a thick slime, sticky and beholden to take the shape of whatever vessel they were placed into—no matter how foreign or uncomfortable.

Byleth never knew other people could exert such a hold on her. Her emotions had always been a solid wall, immovable and unshakeable. But ever since coming to the monastery, they felt more and more like a thick slime, sticky and beholden to take the shape of whatever vessel they were placed into—no matter how foreign or uncomfortable. 

It took no time at all for Claude to master this new sludge state of hers. He was able to hold it in his hands without losing a single ounce, kneading and stretching to his tactical mind’s content. Byleth loathed the manipulation, but at least someone was in control. 

Dimitri’s efforts were much clumsier. He held the ooze in a vice grip, the urge at once protective and possessive. The warmth in his hands was something close to comforting, but always brief. He squeezed so tightly— _too tightly_ —that it was never long before Byleth seeped through the cracks in his rough fingers and dripped helplessly all over the cool stone. 

Edelgard was the only one that seemed to have enough sense to just scoop the muck in a nondescript container and stick it on a shelf. This way, Byleth could watch her students emote from a safe distance, and all she had to do was fight the intrusive compulsion to scoot herself off the edge and fling herself toward the throng. Byleth didn’t have the words to identify these feelings yet, and she didn’t want them. Enemies without names or faces were always easier to eliminate. 

No, the easiest solution was to avoid the enemy altogether. And in the event of an ambush, Byleth would just do what she always did. 

Flex her fingers and turn back time. 

Sothis had initially gifted her the divine pulse’s power so she could resurrect students lest something go awry. Byleth thought the sentiment unnecessary until an unseen archer managed to hit Ferdinand twice before she could warn him. Fixing the oversight was simple enough, but it was a few weeks before she could meet his eyes without remembering how lifeless they had once been. Suddenly caring whether people lived or died would take some getting used to. 

But even more mortifying was the increasing tenderness she felt for everyone around her and the embarrassing impulses that ensued. 

It first happened when she had been teaching the Blue Lions class about new gambits, and Dimitri gave a particularly intelligent answer. Charm only seemed to come to the prince when he wasn’t trying, and the special something about the nonchalant way he refilled his inkwell as he elaborated on battalions was not a sentiment Byleth was ready to face. Yet she found herself walking toward him, and before she could stop herself, she reached out her hand and affectionately ruffled his golden hair. 

The inkwell snapped in Dimitri’s fist. His eyes darted to hers as the splattered ink like hot black shame leaked down his reddening face and trickled down her rigid hand. The other students froze, unsure how to address the incredible lapse in decorum from two parties they had been conditioned to respect.

The prince’s vassal was the first to move. 

“Your Highness—"

“It’s alright, Dedue.” Dimitri broke the staring contest between himself and the professor and procured a handkerchief from his pocket. “My sincerest apologies, Professor. May I?” 

Byleth felt as though her brain might never return to normal speed again. She could think of no reason why she had just tousled the Crown Prince of Faerghus’s hair like a dog other than she wanted to, and she was pretty sure that wouldn’t stand up in royal court. Byleth could feel an unknown heat rising in her cheeks that flared even brighter when Sylvain broke his silence with a telltale smirk. 

“Wow, Your Highness, you usually buy a lady dinner first before you—"

Byleth flexed her fingers in Dimitri’s hair and let the sound of shattering glass rescue her. She only needed to go back a minute, just enough to stop herself from acting on her revolting whim and to make sure Sylvain never— _ever_ —finished that sentence. 

When time resumed, a clean-faced Dimitri had just finished giving his answer. He set down his inkwell and looked up at his professor, waiting for something. 

“Good, Dimitri. Everyone, it would do you well to write that down.”

The praise was polite—curt, even—yet it warmed Dimitri from the inside out. He involuntarily shuddered as he felt something ghost his scalp, but found nothing when he ran a hand through his hair. He chalked it up to exhaustion—he hadn’t slept well last night, again, not that he ever did—and settled back in his seat, remaining inexplicably fixated on his professor’s small hands for the rest of class. 

After that fiasco, the divine pulse became a crutch, and then it became an addiction. She could only go back a few minutes at a time, and the magic exhausted her, but the stolen seconds were precious. Byleth used time’s tricks to run away from death and worse—like when she cheered too loudly at Dorothea’s recital in the cathedral, or when Raphael pulled her in for a big bear hug after a battle, or all the times when—

Byleth tried to forget it. The past was the past, and that past never was. She didn’t have to dwell on things that technically never happened. And she certainly didn’t have to face emotions she never technically experienced. 

Sothis made her distaste for the trickery annoyingly clear. Byleth became so accustomed to the chiding that would follow the sound of shattered glass that she involuntarily rolled her eyes any time a plate was dropped in the dining hall. 

_“Are you sure you want to take this one back? It seems cruel to take this moment away from someone else.”_

Yes, she was sure. She was always sure. And the flexing of her fingers became a powerful force of habit any time anyone dared make her feel something. 

But alas, sometimes fate had plans not even a god could escape. 

Time had turned against her will once before, when she shielded Edelgard from an axe blow. It was an act without forethought, and she was fully prepared to die for some girl she had never met. She tried to convince herself it was out of a sense of duty, but she had never felt that duty toward anyone else before. Perhaps her life really was so meaningless that sacrificing herself for the strange, aloof girl with the white hair was a fitting end. 

But then glass shattered all around her as the world inverted and the peculiar pixie in her head who now had a name turned back time. Byleth could only guess why Sothis had chosen that particular moment, of all moments, to first intervene. Maybe death really had been just a final breath away, and Sothis couldn’t risk the destruction of her vessel. 

When time resumed, Byleth still shielded the Imperial Princess, but with an offensive stance to disable the oncoming attack. She could have stopped the axe from a distance, but acting as one more layer of protection between Edelgard and her attacker gave Byleth a deep, primal confidence she had never felt before. The instinct to protect, above all else, would quickly become one of the scarce few feelings she was comfortable with. It was simple, easy to understand. And if it kept these sheltered kids alive, all the better. 

The current torrent of emotions was impossible to bear in comparison. The days since Jeralt’s death— _murder_ —had passed in an agonizing blur. Byleth felt like she had been critically wounded in battle without the scars to prove she fought for something and lived to see another day. She couldn’t get out of bed and couldn’t tell anyone why, but they all seemed to understand which only made her want to hide from them more. The inexplicable weight on her chest grew heavier and heavier with each passing minute, and she found herself hoping the suffocating mass would just hurry up and finish the job. 

They had all seen her cry that day. She slammed a pillow over her head at the memory, as if the empty room was suddenly lit by their stunned eyes. She had used all of her divine pulses to save her father, only to watch him die by Monica’s cruel impish hands again and again. Sothis kept screaming at her to stop, blabbering on about some things that were meant to be, but Byleth kept trying and trying until the nightmare was committed to memory and she had no magic left to rewind the heavy sobs that everyone could see and hear. 

She audibly groaned as she thought about how disturbed her students must have been. She had been unable to hide the wetness on her face, the snot in her nose, her heaving cries; and the fact that they held back their disgust at the sight only spoke to their noble manners. She would make sure they never saw her like that again—no one ever would. She had always hated the Ashen Demon nickname, but now it was her last line of defense. 

There was a hurried knock on the door. Its urgency would be alarming under usual circumstances, but the invisible force on her body was too effective in its paralysis. So effective, she couldn’t even bring herself to answer when the knock occurred again, with even more agitation. 

“Professor?”

Byleth groaned under her pillow again. She couldn’t handle Dimitri right now. She could barely handle him on a normal day—what with all the alien ways he seemed to twist and pull her insides with no awareness of the haphazard vivisection he was performing.

_“Told you he would be the first one to crack.”_

And she certainly couldn’t handle Sothis’s smug teasing. 

“Professor, please, I heard a distressed noise from your room, and I need to make sure you’re alright.”

Before Byleth could make a mental note to never make another noise ever again, there was a loud crash and her door was off its hinges. 

“Professor, are you—” Dimitri scanned the room, searching for the attacker he was certain had come to harm his professor in her most vulnerable time. Instead, he only found teal hair peeking out from a nest of heavy blankets. 

He creeped toward her. Had she been sleeping? Was she having a nightmare? He suddenly felt like a fool for having disturbed her sleep with his trespassing, but if her nightmares were anything like his then perhaps the sin wasn’t so egregious. He always appreciated when someone relieved him of his torment, even if it meant lying awake until the sun rose once more. 

Byleth removed the pillow over her head, and he froze like caught prey. 

She could barely muster the energy to address the transfixed prince before her. 

“Dimitri, you look like you’ve done something wrong. Should I be worried?”

Should she be worried? He had nearly broken down her door trying to get inside, and the cold draught coming in told her it was the middle of the night. Worse yet, she wasn’t sure if she had enough strength to flex her fingers in case of an emotional entrapment. She shivered and burrowed further into her hovel. 

The sight of her bundled up and shaking nearly brought tears to Dimitri’s sleepless eyes, and any uncertainty melted as he rushed to her side. Years of royal training nagged at him to think of the impropriety as he sat down on her bed, but his desire—his _need_ —to protect her overruled all else. He placed a hand on her icy cheek to warm her up. Perhaps his blasted body heat could finally be good for something. 

“Professor, I’m so sorry, but I was walking past your room and heard a noise from within, and I had to make sure you were alright. I thought maybe someone had—”

“I assure you, Dimitri, I’m just fine. As you can see, no attackers here.” He was sitting close, far too close, probably close enough to hear Sothis’s incessant giggling inside her head, and yet the heat from his hand was so nice she resisted the temptation to pull away. Still, she made sure she could fully extend her fingers. Just in case.

The corner of her lip twitched against her will. “Other than some maniac that tried to knock down my door.” 

His hand gripped her more tightly now as his eyes frantically darted about the room. “Who? When? I’ll—”

“Dimitri.” The prince snapped his head to meet her gaze, large indigo eyes peering through dark eyelashes, waiting for him to catch on to something. 

“Oh.” Something inside Dimitri demanded him to tear his eyes away from hers— _what kind of animal breaks down a woman’s door at such an unholy hour?_ —but he found it powerless against the professor’s soft exhale through her nose. Her laughs were so little, so precious. He ravenously drank in each one as if they might disappear forever. 

“You’ll have to excuse my slowness; I haven’t been sleeping lately.” Dimitri knew full well that his density had nothing to do with the lack of sleep and everything to do with the fact that he was sitting in his professor’s bed. 

“You don’t need to apologize, it’s not like I’m the paragon of activity myself right now.” Byleth had intended the words as a deflective joke, but there was only something wounded in Dimitri’s eyes as he finally broke his stare.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

This is exactly where Byleth did not want this conversation to go. She could see hot tears welling up in his eyes, and the image made her throat tight. She was always on a precipice with him; dancing on the edge with the steady anxiety that she could be pulled in tight or pushed off into the chasm below. She didn’t know which death she preferred, but either would be better than the anticipation that lingered between them. She readied her fingers, hoping she could find the strength to go back just a few minutes and lose this mistake to time forever.

Dimitri had learned long ago that tears did little to avenge the dead, and with a practiced clench of his jaw, he promptly willed them away. He had to find strength from somewhere—had to help her muffle the voice of her father that was no doubt plaguing her the same way his always did. The thought of anyone saying such cruel things to his professor made him grind his teeth. He would do anything to silence that voice for her. 

“No matter what happens or what anyone may say, know that I plan to stand by you, Professor. Through anything. Until the bitter end.”

A fire rose rapidly in Byleth’s throat, sweet and scalding like boiled sugar. She knew if she couldn’t find a way to stop it, it would keep rising up and up until it burst through her skin. The sorrow in his face was replaced by a gripping, electrifying darkness—his hand so hot surely it must be branding her cheek, embedding his fingerprints into the soft skin forever. She once again could feel everyone’s eyes on her as they snickered and pointed at Dimitri’s mark, a permanent sign that she had been weak, and he had been the one to comfort her. She didn’t know what she hated more: their unrelenting gossip or the sick part of her that wanted everyone to know. 

Dimitri regretted many things in his life—he regretted almost everything that stupidly tumbled out of his mouth. His sudden outbursts of adoration as a child were always met with a cold glare at best, and he quickly learned that his affection was not something anyone had much use for. But he couldn’t regret pledging to stand by her side, not when he meant every word of it so fervently. Not when he wished so desperately for her to take the hand he had spent his entire existence hopelessly extending to someone—anyone.

Her wide eyes chipped away at whatever confidence had possessed him, and Dimitri remembered where he was, the time of night, and the little distance between them. He jolted his hand away from her face as if shocked, unsure what to do with the offending appendage. He opted to let it sit weakly in his lap.

“Well, Professor, I suppose I should work on getting you a new door.” He chuckled weakly, hoping his lame joke would lighten his intense declaration. 

Byleth only managed a grimace in return, and Dimitri couldn’t believe that even her sad smiles could be so mesmerizing. 

“That won’t be necessary, Dimitri.”

The prince blinked at her with an adorable tilt of his head. 

“I’m sorry?”

_“You’re being ridiculous, let him have this one—”_

Glass shattered, everything inverted, and then there was a knock at the door.

“Professor?”

_“I can’t believe you.”_

Byleth ignored the green-haired gremlin and removed the pillow over her head. “Yes?”

“Oh. Um. I just wanted to see if you were alright.”

_“This is not this power’s purpose.”_

“It’s late, Dimitri.”

There was an almost unbearable pause, and Byleth wondered if perhaps she should just let him in anyway. But she certainly didn’t have another divine pulse in her, and the risk of something like _that_ happening again was just too great. She couldn’t keep seeping through his fingers.

“My apologies. I thought I heard a noise, but...I must have been mistaken. I’m sorry for disturbing you, Professor.”

Another pregnant pause. He was still at her door. Something in her face grew warm at the thought, and she lifted her own hand to her cheek. She absolutely, without a doubt did not want him to come in here, and she certainly, unquestionably did not want him to hold her face or look at her that way again. 

“Professor?”

“Yes, Dimitri?”

_“Please, just let him be your friend.”_

“Is there anything you need?” His voice heartbreakingly hopeful.

_“It’s not so awful to depend on the strength and kindness of others from time to time.”_

“I think I just need to rest. Thank you, Dimitri. I’ll see you in class soon.”

There was a small sigh on the other side of the door before:

“Yes, of course. Good night, Professor.”

Dimitri tried to swallow a disappointment he could barely acknowledge in the first place. To recognize disappointment would mean admitting that he was hoping for something, and Dimitri didn’t hope for things anymore. And if he had been tricked into hoping for something, he couldn’t even tell himself what it was. Was he really so noble to believe she actually needed him, or was it all an excuse to see his professor in the middle of the night? That sounded more like Sylvain’s gambits than one of his own. 

No. He was merely extending a hand, once again, only to have it rejected and hanging limply by his side. He couldn’t blame her. His hand belonged to the dead, and taking it would only get her dragged down to the underworld with him. Even now they screamed at him to stop thinking about her small fingers and focus on the task ahead. He let their voices guide the way as he shuffled to the training grounds to gain strength for their charge.

*** * ***

Byleth woke up to a sharp knock. She should have expected that the Crown Prince wouldn’t give up so easily.

“Dimitri, I said I’m fine.”

“It’s Edelgard.”

That was less expected. Byleth lied still, unsure of her next move. Edelgard was usually a safe bet for conversation—they both stayed in their respective boxes and kept their discussions strictly practical. But that was before, and Byleth’s current circumstances were still a frustrating unknown variable. 

“Professor? Can I come in? I’m just dropping something off.”

The Imperial Princess had all the weariness in her tone of someone whose errand was taking longer than expected, which seemed harmless enough. Surely the Ashen Demon could handle a package delivery. 

“Yes, sorry, come on in.”

Edelgard took no hesitation to swing open the door and sweep fresh morning air into the stale room. The space felt more claustrophobic than usual, and she did not close the door behind her. Confined spaces made her feel small. She heaved a heavy basket onto the professor’s cluttered desk. 

“Claude asked me to drop this off—I can’t fathom why he couldn’t do it himself. But he seemed to think you’d be more comfortable seeing me than him.”

Byleth couldn’t help thinking that Claude, as always, was right. 

“Anyway, he says it’s full of treats and other nonsense from the Golden Deer house. I didn’t bother to look, so I can’t vouch for any nefarious tricks hidden inside.” 

“Thank you, Edelgard.”

The task was completed, yet Edelgard made no motion to exit. Byleth somehow knew that even if she could read other people’s faces, Edelgard’s would still be a mystery. None of her house leaders truly wore anything on their sleeves, but Edelgard’s face was always so...blank. Was this the same face bandits and rogues saw in their final moments when the Ashen Demon sliced through them?

Edelgard could never decipher her teacher’s expressions. Her vacant stare simultaneously infuriated and fascinated the Imperial Princess, and her curiosity to peel back that expressionless void only grew the day Captain Jeralt was killed. She marveled to think that someone who never so much as smiled in her direction could shed tears like that. 

“So, even you cry sometimes.”

Byleth rotated her head and stared at the ceiling. Edelgard was supposed to be scooping her up and sealing her away, not taking her out in the open! She readied her fingers to flex again, annoyed that she could now depend on absolutely none of her students to let her feel nothing. 

Edelgard seemed to sense her aggravation and hastily attempted to rectify the misstep.

“Sorry, I suppose that was thoughtless of me to say. Long ago, someone said the same to me. I didn’t like it then either. I shouldn’t have repeated it to you.”

“It’s fine, really.”

Seeing her teacher cry was one thing, but watching her completely resign herself to misery was another. To not even get a scolding for her impudence was maddening to Edelgard. The crumpled being before her was no longer the strong woman who cut down everything in her path—the teacher that Edelgard needed. The time for soft words and handholding was over.

“Are you waiting for time to heal your wounds? Or have you curled up in a corner and lost the will to carry on?”

“Does it matter?” The professor’s response came tenser than Edelgard had anticipated, but the princess was unafraid to snap back. 

“It does. You’ve lost yourself.”

Byleth wasn’t sure how she could lose something she never had in the first place—a wavering reflection that grew murkier by the day. No wonder her father tried to keep her away from this damned academy. She didn’t like being forced to think about it, especially by a student she thought she could trust to leave her alone. She twitched her fingers, the Ashen Demon unable to handle a simple package delivery after all—

“The mysterious organization that was carrying out experiments in Remire Village and the chapel...they’re up to something near Garreg Mach. The Archbishop has sent the knights to undertake a large-scale investigation.”

Byleth stilled at Edelgard’s words. If Jeralt’s killers were nearby, she could take action. And perhaps that action would be enough to get rid of the vexing weight on her chest. She decided to let Edelgard continue. For now. 

“No information has surfaced yet, but our enemies will soon be discovered. When they are, will you lead us into battle? Or will you just sit here with no thought for the future that is fast approaching?”

The Imperial Princess took deliberative steps toward her now. 

“My teacher...There is a choice to be made. I hope you make the right one.”

Without waiting for a reply, Edelgard swiftly left the musty room, slamming the door decisively behind her. 

Byleth didn’t move, but her mind whirred with the thought of revenge. Vengeance was technically a feeling—and she didn’t want feelings—but its transactional nature was familiar. Growing up, she had always been taught that some lives were worth the pay. This really wasn’t so different, was it? And she would be earning so much more than money. An eye for an eye. A kill for a kill.

A fire stirred within as she kicked the suffocating blankets off and finally rose from her long stupor. This flame was nothing like the blistering sap set loose by Dimitri’s words. This was a spark with a solution, something that could consume the tempest within by doing what she always did best. 

_“I see you already know what your answer is.”_

She did, and she was finally back in control. No one would ever mistake her for anything other than the Ashen Demon ever again. She already felt like her old self, her stomach rumbling as she opened Claude’s basket to rifle through the wrapped treats much too sweet for her taste. 

Her rummaging hand paused as it hit something hard and leathery. She grabbed hold, and pulled out a worn notebook. She opened the front cover and gasped as she processed the handwritten name inside.

This was his diary. Her father’s diary. And there was no doubt Claude had read the whole thing.

And there was nothing her flexed fingers could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to publish the prologue and the first chapter at the same time since the first chapter is where the plot really gets going. I've outlined this whole fic, and it's looking like it will be about 50-60 chapters when all is said and done. I'm really excited about where this story is ultimately heading, so I'll do my best to stay in this for the long haul. Thank you for reading!


	2. Both Sides of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth decides she's the Ashen Demon again and Sothis decides she is sick of her shit.

With vengeance on her mind, Byleth was ready to put the tearful unpleasantness behind her and return to the classroom as if nothing had happened. That was, until she looked at the schedule and saw her first class was with the Golden Deer.

Just as she feared, Claude curiously watched her during the entire lecture. Byleth found herself absentmindedly thumbing her wrist, tracking its lack of pulse. She could hardly make sense of the diary’s revelation, but her father’s words so far rang true. Rhea had done something to her as a baby. Now if she could only figure out what. 

_“If you keep holding your wrist like that, he’s going to know that you know that he knows.”_

Byleth abruptly clapped her hands together and ended class a few minutes early. Hilda especially didn’t seem to mind as she bolted out of the classroom. Byleth tried to pack up quickly and follow close behind, but Claude was too fast for her.

“Nice to have you back, Teach.”

He planted one hand on a stack of parchment, the rest of his body at a diagonal as if to take up as much space as possible. 

“It’s nice to be back, Claude.”

Byleth stared right into his eyes—that glittering green that could only promise vexation—and dared him to say more. She was the Ashen Demon now, and the Ashen Demon could not be manipulated like clay in anyone’s hands.

The Ashen Demon underestimated just how much Claude loved a challenge.

“So, Teach. What did you think of our little present?”

“I’m lucky to have such thoughtful students. Although I still don’t understand why you made Edelgard do the grunt work.”

“You seem a little less… _guarded_ around the Imperial Princess than you do with myself or—” He jerked his head to the Blue Lions classroom on the right.

Byleth shook her head and softly exhaled through her nose. “I’ve told you before, Claude, I don’t have favorites.”

“Now, now, Teach, you don’t have to lie to me. There’s no shame in picking favorites, and you definitely have one. Although…” His smirk somehow grew even more impossibly mischievous, eyes never backing down from hers. “I don’t think it’s Edelgard.”

“Pray tell, Claude, who is my favorite then?” Byleth’s voice was dead, but her brain was buzzing with curiosity. She truly didn’t know the answer to his question, and self-preservation blocked her from even considering the options. She had stolen so much time in the name of maintaining an outward front of complete nothingness. She had to know what was slipping through the cracks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Claude had to hold back laughter; she really was so oblivious to herself sometimes. Maybe some people bought her vacant eyes, but he could always see the synapses firing behind them, working to decipher his cryptic words. It was an intricate dance of deflection, and Claude relished every careful step. She may present an emotionless facade, but he knew she was too much of a strategist to back down from a puzzle so easily. Too much like him.

Byleth wanted to ask more, but she could tell Claude was enjoying the game too much to feel entirely safe doing so. She instead pretended to take an intense interest in the papers he leaned on, replaying their conversation in her head. Talking to Claude was an exercise in gambits, but without knowing what he wanted, she couldn’t tell what he was risking. Enemies on the battlefield only ever wanted her life or her gold; she wasn’t used to defending against more nuanced objectives. The obscurity made her uneasy, and she nervously twitched her fingers. The conversation hadn’t gone on too long yet, she could still turn back time and make up some excuse to leave before he could ambush—

“Anyway, Teach, I gotta run. It’s been—ah!” The stack of parchment slipped under the pressure of his planted hand and sent papers flying all over the floor. Byleth sprang from her chair and knelt down to clean up the mess, Claude scrambling to join her. 

“It’s okay, Claude, you can go.”

“Come on, Teach, I can clean up after myself—” Claude reached for the same paper as Byleth, grabbing the top of her hand instead. She froze at the sudden contact, waiting for him to acknowledge the accident and release his grip. 

If Byleth was supposed to react a certain way, she didn’t know what it was. All she felt was confusion at Claude’s refusal to let her go. His hand was much larger than hers; his fingers practically wrapped around her wrist. Perhaps she was supposed to blush, and that’s why he had been talking so much about favorites. Perhaps he was hoping it was him. Byleth suppressed a laugh at the thought—she still rejected she had a favorite at all, but if she did, it definitely wasn’t the scheming, conniving Leicester heir. She couldn’t even trust him, let alone favor him.

Still, there was something delicious about figuring out his game—a validation she wanted to chase. He had shown his hand, and Byleth could hardly keep the smirk off her face when she denied him the satisfaction of being right.

“Claude, you can let go of my hand now.” A perfect monotone. Maybe she didn’t need the divine pulse to escape humanity after all.

Claude released his hold with a quick apology and helped her pick up the rest of the papers. He muttered a soft goodbye as he handed her the stack and darted out of the room.

Byleth stared at the exit for a moment. She hadn’t meant to make him feel uncomfortable, mostly because she wasn’t aware that Claude was capable of feeling discomfort. Still, he needed to be put in his place; he needed to know that the Ashen Demon was not so easily decoded. Byleth allowed herself a slight smile at the thought.

It wasn’t until several hours later when she was lying in bed, absentmindedly thumbing her wrist where her pulse should be, that Byleth caught on to the true nature of Claude’s maneuver. 

“Dammit.”

*** * ***

If Claude truly had confirmed what he read in Jeralt’s diary, he didn’t let it show. If anything, he was avoiding Byleth now, which was not a habit she was in any hurry to correct. She was already devoting a considerable amount of divine pulses to evading a certain prince who had the persistent audacity to ask her how she was feeling. She reasoned it was kinder to erase the offensive question from his memory than to assert that she, in fact, felt nothing. 

Sothis of course wasn’t happy about it, but Byleth paid little mind to her scolding. It wasn’t her fault that human existence exhausted her so. It’s not like she was a god. 

Byleth instead tried to focus on the task ahead of her. The Knights of Seiros would find Monica and Solon and she would have her revenge and there would be no reason for her throat to tighten up any time something reminded her of her father ever again. The violence of the thought punctuated every swing of her sword during the hours she spent in the training grounds. Felix often joined her, his silence a welcome companion. She figured her feelings were the least interesting thing in the world to him, which made sense—you couldn’t care about something that didn’t exist. 

It was during one of their emotionless spars that they were disturbed by the approach of bickering voices. Three very specific bickering voices. Felix stabbed his sword angrily into the dirt. 

“What are they on about now?”

The three house leaders together was a rare sight, and Byleth could see why. Each one seemed terribly annoyed that the other two were there, and none were willing to relinquish the prize of being the first to speak. 

“—my teacher, if I could have a moment of your—”

“—please, Professor, let me—”

“—hey Teach, wait ‘til you hear—”

Byleth closed her eyes and put up a hand to stop the din. “One at a time, please.”

Dimitri’s compulsion to follow her instructions superseded his desire to speak, and Claude was really only in the contest to annoy the other two, so it was Edelgard’s clear and commanding voice that won out. 

“I know where the enemy is...where Solon is. They’re in a place called the Sealed Forest, close to the monastery. The Archbishop is gathering the knights in secret, behind our backs.”

Byleth’s grip on her sword tightened. She was grateful it was an ordinary training weapon and not the Sword of the Creator, whose bloody glow would have betrayed the pounding in her skull. If what her father’s diary said was true, Rhea had already taken enough from him. She didn’t need his tribute too. 

“Why in secret?” Byleth was careful not to let the simmering liquid inside of her boil over. 

Dimitri stepped in front of Edelgard before she could speak again. 

“Lady Rhea likely assumed you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from confronting the enemy if you knew their location. But that is not how this story ends, is it?” The prince bowed deeply, earning a scoff from Felix that went ignored. “Professor, we are at the ready. Order us to depart, and we’ll fight by your side.”

Claude tutted and crossed his arms with a smirk. 

“Now, now, Your Princeliness, who’s this ‘we’? You don’t mean the Blue Lions do you?” 

Dimitri straightened and spun to face the Golden Deer leader. “Of course I do. Most of the Blue Lions have been training for battle since birth. We are the house best equipped to keep the Professor safe—”

“Don’t be absurd, the Black Eagles are perfectly capable—”

“With all due respect, Edelgard, we are raised in Faerghus to—”

“I was going to offer the Golden Deer, but this is far more entertaining—”

Byleth could barely hear the battle clashing around her. Their jabs and strikes were muffled by a steady beat, a pulse she didn’t have, that thrummed throughout her body. The past few weeks—moons, even—had been a nightmare of confounding sensations and thoughts that contradicted one another and shattered her once simple sense of self. But now, for the first time since coming to the monastery, her entire being was consumed with one force—a blazing heat that promised to engulf everything in its path until nothing remained. 

Byleth opened up and let the flame swallow her whole. 

“Edelgard. Dimitri. Claude.” At her command, the three students ceased fire. They all looked expectantly at their professor, awaiting further instructions. 

“I want each of you to find your two most trusted and capable classmates and immediately prepare them for battle. Meet in front of the monastery gates. Expediency is key. Don’t let anyone else know what you’re doing—especially Rhea.”

Edelgard’s eyes specifically lit up at the mention of the Archbishop. Byleth wondered if that same flame was within her too. 

Dimitri bowed, Claude winked, and the three house leaders turned heel to hastily gather their comrades.

Felix chased after them without so much as a parting nod to his sparring partner. “I better be going with you, Boar!” 

_“You’re lucky to have students who care so much as to place their lives in your hands. Do not let your thirst for vengeance put them in danger.”_

Ferdinand’s lifeless eyes flashed in Byleth’s mind before she willed the intrusive image away.

“They’re strong.” Byleth’s fingers involuntarily twitched. 

_“Hm.”_

*** * ***

Edelgard had kept her distance from the Crown Prince ever since their disastrous first introduction at Garreg Mach, when he called her by her first name and attempted an embrace. It was hardly an appropriate greeting for a stranger, let alone the heir to the Adrestian Empire. Edelgard wasn’t one for strict propriety, but this behavior was alarming—especially coming from a member of the royal family. Worst of all, he appeared confused when she recoiled in shock. 

He took several stunned moments before he seemed to remember himself. He bowed deeply, golden bangs obscuring his eyes but helpless to hide his scarlet ears.

“Forgive me, Imperial Princess, I thought—“

“I’ve never known anyone from the Holy Kingdom to be so familiar, especially with one they’ve just met.” She could only think of one explanation for his misstep, and she sought to swiftly correct it. “If you were assuming a marriage arrangement, I’m afraid you’ll have to search for a different hand, Your Highness.” 

The boy blubbered, his face a bright crimson. Hubert appeared ready to hex him back to Fhirdiad. For a moment, Edelgard felt guilty for her venomous words, but quickly squirreled the troublesome emotion away. She couldn’t care about some spoiled prince’s hopes for the future. Not when she had her own path to cut.

But now he seemed to have forgotten his place again. 

“Really, Edelgard, I don’t understand all the fuss.”

The three house leaders had gathered their best fighters and now accompanied Byleth to the Sealed Forest, effectively escaping detection from the Knights of Seiros. Claude walked alongside Byleth at the front of the convoy, no doubt pestering her with one of his half-baked schemes. Dimitri longed to take Claude’s place by her side, but Edelgard had insisted on holding him back and harping on some inane point. 

“Don’t insult me, Your Highness. The Professor asked us to bring two classmates, yet you saw fit to bring three.” 

Dimitri allowed himself a rare eye roll. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his aggravation in check these days. 

“I thought it prudent to bring an additional healer, and given yours and Claude’s choices, it seems I was right to do so.”

Edelgard couldn’t quite pinpoint why Dimitri’s choice to bring Mercedes in addition to his vassal and Felix bothered her, but his slight hit a nerve.

“Dorothea would have been sufficient if Claude had brought Lysithea like I thought—”

“Well, he didn’t. He brought me.” 

Dimitri and Edelgard looked sheepishly behind them. They had expected Claude to bring Hilda (despite her protests), but they had shamefully done little to hide their surprise when he appeared with Leonie as well. She was a fine fighter, sure, but Lysithea felt like the more obvious choice.

Leonie was not afraid to stand her ground against nobles, and her practiced glower dared the Imperial Princess to say more. Neither of them were ready to admit it (mostly because it would mean admitting they had something in common), but Dimitri and Edelgard both wished more commoners would treat them this way. 

The prince nodded to her with a smile. 

“Thank you for joining us on our mission today.”

Leonie sniffed and looked straight ahead, her mind on more important matters than easing noble guilt. Recognizing the look on her face, Dimitri declined to press the matter further and turned back to Edelgard.

“I will not apologize for thinking ahead and keeping the Professor’s safety in mind. Can you honestly say that my foresight was wrong?”

“I was just under the impression that you _liked_ following orders—”

“I’ll follow orders unless I think there’s a better way—”

“Oh, so you don’t trust her leadership—”

“If war breaks out over who gets to sit next to Teach at graduation, then just know I’m not taking sides.”

The Crown Prince and the Imperial Princess broke their fierce glares and whipped their heads to the Leicester heir now before them. 

“That’s not something to joke about, Claude.” Dimitri surprised himself with his icy tone. Claude didn’t seem fazed. 

“Then you two should be more careful about raising each other’s tempers. Especially because we could _definitely_ hear you up there, and I don’t think she’s interested in coddling two whiny kids who can’t share their favorite toy right now.” 

Hilda and Dorothea giggled behind them. Edelgard’s face turned to stone. Dimitri stared at the ground, blushing furiously. Claude never knew shaming his classmates could be so fun.

“Don’t look so down, Your Princeliness. I’m sure your beloved professor will still want to be Queen of Faerghus someday, even if she’s painfully oblivious now—” Claude wondered just how red Dimitri could get— “And Princess, I bet big sister Byleth will braid your hair and read you a story if you just ask.”

Dimitri shot up. “Your disregard for the Professor’s title shows quite the lack of respect, does it not?”

Claude grinned with a maniacal twinkle in his eye. These uptight nobles really did make it so easy. “Maybe I’m just on a first-name basis with Teach. Does that bother you, Your Highness?”

If Dimitri’s blush could rise any higher, his hair would start to look like Sylvain’s, and it took all of his princely restraint not to snap his silver lance in two. He needed to stay in control for the mission—his Professor's vengeance demanded it. So rather than dignify Claude with one more response, he picked up his pace and distanced himself from his classmates, Dedue following closely behind. 

Edelgard wanted to storm off too, but her pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead she narrowed in on the future Alliance leader.

“You know, Claude, it wouldn’t hurt you to keep some thoughts to yourself. You may be able to buy carelessness with your status now, but one day your actions will catch up to you.” Her words made Hubert half-smile at the ground. Claude didn’t notice as he locked his eyes onto Edelgard’s, emerald at war with amethyst. 

“I hope they do.”

He turned and jogged back to Byleth, happily leaving the Imperial Princess to silently stew over his words.

*** * ***

Pointed branches lacerated Byleth’s body as she tore through the forest. The house leaders had chosen their classmates well, and she had plenty of divine pulses at her disposal to pursue her prize. Her ears prickled with the faint echo of her students calling her name, but she shut them out. 

_“I think you should go back to them.”_

Byleth wished she could shut this voice out too. She would not be forced to think of their sweet determined faces, their unwavering adoration—it would only slow her down. Monica—no, _Kronya_ —was just through these trees, and Byleth did not want anything in her mind but the image of that creature’s head separating from its neck. 

_“Do not abandon your students, Byleth!”_

She tumbled through a clearing and found Kronya writhing in the dirt. The Ashen Demon took slow steps as she raised the Sword of the Creator, the weapon that would slash the miserable animal squirming and sobbing before her until it never felt anything ever again. The sword glowed ravenously at the thought and Byleth swore she could feel it throb in her hand. 

There was a rush of cold air and a sudden paralysis overtook her. A thick panic rose in Byleth’s throat as she realized she couldn’t flex her fingers. Solon appeared in a shadowy flash, and she could only watch as the wizened villain picked Kronya up and cracked her spine, taunting Byleth with a sick satisfaction that would never be hers. 

Dark tendrils of violet light emanated from the broken puppet and snaked around Byleth’s frozen wrists and ankles. They creeped up her arms and legs, wrapping her in a perverse warmth that threatened to squeeze her lungs.

_“Byleth, what have you—”_

Her students arrived just in time to watch their professor vanish into the darkness. 

*** * ***

“You fool!”

Sothis’s tone demanded that Byleth look up. The girl sat perched on her dark throne, seething. 

“What were you thinking, charging right into an enemy’s trap? Are you prepared to die?” Byleth had no answer. Thinking of her own life was an impossible task, her mind haunted instead by the petrified eyes of her young students. 

“Sothis, I have to get out of here.”

The precocious being leaned forward. “So _now_ you care about their lives? About their wellbeing?”

Byleth fell to her knees. Her fists clenched tightly as she stared at the floor, only vaguely aware that her nails were breaking skin. “Please, take me back to them.”

Sothis sighed. “I know what must be done and yet I am loath to do it. I fear what will become of my power if relinquished entirely to one as irresponsible as you. Unless…”

She stood up and slowly walked down the steps, letting each thump of her feet on the stone echo in the cavernous void. Byleth gritted her teeth. Now especially wasn't the time for more of Sothis’s cryptic musings. 

“Both sides of time have been revealed to you, and you alone. I’ve seen enough to know how little this means to you.”

Byleth dared to look up again. Sothis stood above her now, perfectly still as a long stream of gold encircled their bodies, shedding flecks of light. An inescapable truth that Byleth had somehow always known yet refused to accept was now close enough to touch.

“Byleth, please,” Sothis took her hand and helped her up as the light around them gleamed brighter. There was none of the usual chiding or exasperation, only a gentle plea as her voice lowered to a faint whisper.

“Look after your students.” 

*** * ***

All Dimitri knew was that the Professor was gone, and he was screaming. 

“I’ll slice you in a thousand pieces as we watch with horror—!” Dimitri lurched forward, halted by Felix’s fierce hold in the crook of his elbow. 

“You’re gonna break my arm and get yourself killed, you damn boar!” 

“Your Highness, please, we need to come up with a plan.” Dedue held fast to the prince’s squirming torso. Dimitri didn’t want a plan, he wanted the wicked foe’s blood—thick liquid from the beast that had snatched her and eaten her alive before Dimitri could do or say anything to stop it. 

Solon paid no mind to the crazed prince, his black eyes instead narrowed on the Imperial Princess. Edelgard stood defiantly against him, her gaze expressionless despite the thousand words unspoken in the yards between them. Only Claude noticed their silent conversation. 

_“Shit!”_

Felix massaged his bruised arm as Dimitri broke free, lance raised to avenge his professor. Perhaps if he acted quickly enough he could stop her voice from joining the others—

“Your Highness—!”

Dimitri fell to the ground as an overwhelming light pierced the sky above him. He shielded his eyes from the blinding force as it grew impossibly brighter, enveloping him in a warmth he didn’t believe possible. He braved a squint toward its source and could just faintly make out the tip of a flaming sword carving the heavens. 

Dimitri lowered his arm and braved the dazzling flare. A wide chasm of inconceivable darkness opened wide and she emerged, whole and unscathed, her hair and eyes now a brilliant mint. She looked down at him, clutching her sword like a hero he could never be. Surely she was another one of the Goddess’s cruel punishments—another phantom to join the ranks of the dead and ridicule him for forgetting his errand. He shut his eyes, unable to watch the incoming vilification tumble from lips he wanted to remember so sweetly. But only Solon's words filled his ears. 

“So the Fell Star consumes even the darkness itself.” The adversary appeared just as paralyzed as the prince, soulless eyes struggling to comprehend the inky chasm that matched them.

“My teacher!” Edelgard was the first to snap to her senses. The princess rushed over and clasped Byleth’s hand, squeezing to see if it was still real, still human. “It is you, right?” 

If her teacher truly had conquered Solon’s spell that could only mean—

Byleth nodded and returned the squeeze. Edelgard’s eyes were practically aflame. 

“I knew you would come back to us,” she whispered as she released her teacher’s hand. “Let us dispose of our enemies!” 

Byleth nodded again and turned to Dimitri, extending her hand. He blinked at the outstretched fingers. It was a vicious, indisputable fact of his wretched existence that those who vanished never returned. They only left echoes of regrets that pulled him into deep, black waters and held his head under. No matter how hard he kicked, they would claw at his heavy clothes and drag him to an unreachable bottom—forcing him to watch as the lights of a world he once belonged to faded higher and higher above him. 

“Dimitri, it’s okay.” She smiled and Dimitri resurfaced. He gasped for air as he tested the small, warm fingers that promised to pull him into the harbor. The dead didn’t feel like this. 

“Teach, what’s the plan?” Byleth felt Claude place a gentle hand on her shoulder as she pulled Dimitri from the ground. 

“Kill that bastard.” She spat the words as if any other plan was lunacy. 

Claude barked out an irreverent laugh. “Yep, that’s Teach alright.” He patted her with a wink and turned to prepare the other students.

Byleth faced Solon, the Sword of the Creator crackling with hunger at her side. He backed away, astonished at the power emanating from the woman who should have been lost to time. 

“This should be impossible. The only thing that can survive that darkness is…” he stopped, realization flickering to determination on his pale visage. “Unless I dispose of you myself, I may never have the chance to send you back there!”

There was another rush of cold air, stronger than the first, and the forest rumbled as mysterious mages in peculiar masks materialized in swirls of dark light. Byleth’s thoughts clicked rapidly as she commanded her students. 

“We’ll form three groups. Leonie and Felix. Take Dorothea to the east and cover her as she hits them with ranged spells. Hilda and Dedue, you do the same for Hubert and Mercedes to the west. Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude. You’re with me.”

Her brave students swiftly filed into perfect formation with no trace of doubt in their eyes. They knew their professor would not let any harm befall them. After all, she never had before. 

Byleth raised her arm, and with a fiery slash of her whip sword, the battle began. 

It was only seconds before her weapon tasted its first blood, glowing brighter as it quenched its thirst. There was only one purpose for a weapon like this: unrelenting carnage. No wonder it had chosen the Ashen Demon. 

As she ruthlessly hacked through the mages, she wondered if her students’ relics would radiate in the same way. Would their hands burn as badly as hers did now? Or could she save them from the insatiable bloodlust that consumed her before they inherited their inevitable birthright?

“Professor!” 

Byleth jerked her head in the direction of the cry and saw Dorothea crouched over a fallen Leonie. A menacing magenta seeped through Leonie’s white shirt at a preposterous rate, and Byleth immediately recognized the dark spell. Dorothea frantically pressed her hands into the girl’s abdomen, but Byleth knew from experience that her faith magic would be too slow. She doubted even Mercedes could heal such a powerful hex wound. No, the attack would have to be prevented entirely. 

Byleth flexed her fingers to turn back time, but there was no sound of shattered glass. She clenched her fist and flexed again. Nothing. Byleth began to panic, pulsing her fingers over and over again, desperate for that sacred sound to rescue her.

“Sothis, what did you do!?” Byleth screamed helplessly at her feeble hands as they trembled. No one answered her.

“Professor, please help!” Dorothea choked out sobs as Leonie began to shake violently. Byleth stood stock-still, powerless to stop the scene of suffering before her.

Both sides of time had been revealed. And just as easily, Sothis had blinded her once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Byleth is about to learn some things the hard way. Sorry if the inner monologue seems Byleth/Dimitri-centric for now—I promise we'll spend some more time in other characters' heads as more info is revealed! I don't think every chapter will be this long, I just wanted to make sure we got to the actual power removal before moving along in the story, since Sothis has some fun tricks up her sleeve.
> 
> Quick world-building clarification: in this universe, Byleth didn't have to choose a house at the beginning. She and the other professors take turns teaching different classes. I wanted her to be on pretty equal footing with all three house leaders to start (for reasons that will start mattering a lot soon).


	3. Untethered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri, with the purest of intentions, inadvertently teaches his beloved professor how to dissociate.
> 
> Quick content warning for descriptions of panic attacks and dissociative episodes. They stop after the first set of asterisks, but they will be a consistent theme of this work moving forward. I will do my best to provide chapter-specific warnings as they come up. More mental health disclaimers in the end notes. Take care of yourself!

Byleth was drowning in a growing dogpile of sensations, each more suffocating than the last. A blaze burned behind her eyes, and her skin was sticky and hot. Her sternum was made of ice and someone was scraping it with their teeth. Everyone in the vicinity was attached to her navel with a string pulled taut, and their frantic movements threatened to disembowel her entirely as they pulled her in a thousand different directions. 

“Teach, look out!” Claude’s voice sounded too close and too far away, and Byleth could not gain enough control to ascertain what she was supposed to look out for. But luck—or rather, a very accurate prince—was on her side as an enemy slumped to her feet, lance lodged firmly in the back of its skull. 

Claude looked to his right at the Crown Prince now rushing toward them. If he hadn’t already seen Dimitri in battle, he wouldn’t believe a critical strike could be made from that distance. But that was the thing about His Highness: sometimes he didn’t seem all there, sometimes he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but he always— _always_ —hit his mark. 

“Professor, what’s the matter?”

“Leonie...she…” Byleth barely managed to point a trembling finger in the direction of her fallen student. The one who adored her father. The one who trusted her professor down this reckless path to avenge him. If Byleth could look anyone in the eyes, she would have seen Claude’s go wide at the sight of his classmate. 

“I’ll get Mercedes.” Claude’s string stretched tighter as he darted to the west, and Byleth clutched her stomach at the sensation.

“Professor! Are you hurt?” Dimitri began to fumble desperately in his pouch for a vulnerary. Leonie’s fragile condition would occupy Dorothea and Mercedes for quite some time, and his wretched crest was too suitable for destruction to allow him any proficiency in white magic. He cursed Edelgard for her earlier scolding, as his foresight to bring Mercedes was now the only thing that separated their classmate from life and death. He furiously uncorked the small bottle as he fumed over the students his fellow house leaders had chosen for the mission. The professor had made it clear that this was of the utmost importance, that danger was imminent—and yet Edelgard and Claude had chosen their classmates with political and personal intentions rather than practical ones. He wondered what sort of privileged existence those in the Empire and the Alliance must be living to have such little regard for human life. 

“I think...I was hit...poison…” Byleth could think of no other explanation for the way her senses seemed to heighten and fog all at once. Dimitri frantically scanned her body up and down for a puncture wound (the part of him concerned for her life overriding the part of him that would normally scold himself for looking at her in such a way), but found her unscathed.

“I don’t see any—” A revelation passed over his face, and he placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Professor, listen to me. I know what you are feeling.” Byleth attached to his blue eyes and didn’t dare look away. His grip made her footing a little more sure. “I too have felt the same. And when I can’t escape it, I…” He found the sensation difficult to describe. How do you explain something that had become as automatic as taking a breath, rehearsed and perfected by years of torment? His tongue tasted the words as they formed in his mouth, savoring the last time they would belong only to him before they entered the world with a careful whisper. 

“I just go somewhere else.”

Byleth still quivered as she stared, not understanding his meaning. 

“I can’t leave...I have to—” The string attached to Leonie’s convulsing body yanked at her insides as three others jerked in competing directions. She was going to throw up. She couldn’t move without tearing herself apart. 

The prince’s gentle tone cut through the raging tempest. “Not physically. Somewhere inside. Somewhere no one can follow you.”

Dimitri’s words echoed as they sunk into the deep, primal part of her brain that screamed at her to survive. Her sight blurred into a soft focus, and his cornflower irises bled into the carnage around them until only azure and crimson remained.

“Just…forget who you are.” 

He removed his hand from her shoulder and the strings at her abdomen snapped. Byleth was weightless. Someone else had the reins—she didn’t know whom and she didn’t care if she ever did. All she knew was that she was untethered: to the battle, her students, her body. It didn’t feel better, and it didn’t feel worse. 

It just finally felt like nothing. 

Byleth must have stopped shaking because Dimitri’s mouth twisted into a small smile. She had no way of telling if she smiled back, just that a voice that wasn’t hers was escaping her throat with an even command.

“Edelgard, cover Leonie and Dorothea until Claude arrives with Mercedes. Dimitri, when they get here, I’ll need you to carry Leonie and sprint with Mercedes back to the supply horse. Remove any extra weight so it can get to the monastery as quickly as possible.”

Dimitri bolted into action at her orders, wrenching the lance from his victim with a satisfying squelch. Edelgard lifted her axe and dashed with imperative speed to defend her friend and classmate. 

The Ashen Demon narrowed in on its primary target, taking slow, determined strides toward the vulture that had stolen its prey. The Sword of the Creator voraciously passed down judgment, flaming tendrils swiftly stealing the souls of any who dared seek its heat along its vengeful path.

Solon aimed a spell at the approaching being, but the legendary whip sword swatted the hex like a fly. If he couldn’t defeat the Fell Star here, he would need to warp back immediately, warn the others—

He fell to his knees as a small hand bore into his waxen face. A fierce weakness overtook him, and his fingers twitched as he tried to summon magic that would never come. He began to crumple, the burning palm on his forehead glowing brighter with each pulse of his life force. Solon’s final words came in feeble croaks, each softer than the last as his corrupted form twisted in on itself.

“So...this is...her...power...” 

His fiendish eyes turned charcoal as he collapsed to the ground, never to rise again.

Byleth blinked slowly at the gnarled corpse, vision fading to black as she wondered which of her students had managed to do that. 

****

*** * ***

“What do you mean none of our mages survived?” Thales grabbed the pale messenger with a violent speed, sharp nails digging into his shoulders. The envoy cried out as the fine points broke skin.

“M-m-most were covered in severe burns and d-deep lacerations! It appears to be the work of the S-sword of the Creator, m-my lord!”

Thales’s inky black eyes narrowed as he let out a low growl, nails sinking further into the page’s paper skin. 

“That troublesome teacher...I never should have trusted that damned fool Solon with such an important task!” Thales released the messenger with an unceremonious thud and spun to face the masked Flame Emperor. 

“What do you know about this?”

“I did not bear witness to the event itself, but her hair and eye color have changed.” The Flame Emperor’s even tone was a sharp tool, honed by too many conversations similar to this one.

Before Thales could interrogate his associate further, three servants arrived, holding aloft a figure shrouded in a cloak. 

“My lord! We bring Solon’s body.” 

“Show it to me.”

The servants lowered their parcel and removed the cloak. Thales could see why they elected to veil the body from the others. It was bent and broken at crude angles, skin shriveled as if all the blood had been drained from its veins. The once-ebony eyes, now a cloudy white, betrayed fear even in death. Whatever Solon’s last moments had been, they had been excruciating. A damned fool indeed. Thales touched the mangled carcass with trepidation, as if getting too close would bring him the same fate. 

“It can’t be…” Before he thought that woman a mere mortal—a lucky fool born with a forgotten crest—but the contorted form before him was far too similar to the others from all that time ago. He turned on his masked partner again, unadulterated menace rapidly filling the space between them. 

“Dispose of that professor.”

The Flame Emperor nodded solemnly, but the eyes behind the mask were shining. 

****

*** * ***

She thrashed on the stone table, screaming in pain as they sliced her arm. Strong hands she couldn’t see held down her limbs as she tried desperately to flex her fingers to no avail. The verdant liquid spilled freely, and she felt the cool glass of a vial against her skin.

“Heal the cut. We’ll need more soon.”

Byleth awoke clutching her arm, breathing ragged. She tried to sit up, but a delicate hand on her forehead stopped her.

“Byleth, you must remain still.”

She looked up at her keeper, and Lady Rhea’s face slowly came into focus. Her light green eyes radiated something warm and safe. Byleth allowed herself to sink back into the Archbishop’s tender hands as she felt a soft whisper tickle her ear.

“There is no need to worry. Those who are trying to harm you are far away.”

Byleth wasn’t sure why, but she believed her. She closed her eyes as Rhea began to hum a sweet lullaby that was at once foreign and familiar, deft fingers working through the tangles in Byleth’s hair. She let her mind drift on the tranquil waves of the Archbishop’s soporific song, and by the time Rhea’s hums turned to words, Byleth could hardly hear them over the gentle crash of the sea. 

“...you have received power from the Goddess…”

Power from the Goddess? Byleth sleepily chuckled at the absurdity. Rhea said the silliest things sometimes. The only one who had given her any power was Sothis, and Byleth faintly remembered something about that little green-haired girl taking it away. Perhaps turning back time had just been a dream, and Sothis simply a figment of Byleth’s imagination—everything outside of this moment in the Archbishop’s lap was an impossible fog. 

“What is so funny to you, dear one?”

The hypnotic bliss made it difficult for Byleth to form a complete sentence. 

“Sothis...said…I wasn’t...”

The hands on her scalp stiffened, and Byleth’s reverie dissipated. She opened her eyes again, and this time the ones staring back were sharp and alight. Byleth suddenly felt like she had done something very wrong. 

“You spoke to her?” The Archbishop spoke in a reverent hush. Sothis’s presence was not something Byleth had ever wished to reveal—especially not to a woman her father explicitly instructed her not to trust. She flexed her fingers out of habit, but the silence told her she would have to find another escape from her blunder. 

“My apologies, Lady Rhea, I seem to be a bit out of sorts.” Byleth tried to make her voice sound weaker than it felt. “I can’t say I know what you’re talking about.”

“Come look, my child.” Without disturbing Byleth’s heavy head, Rhea procured a small handheld mirror. It was far more reflective than any looking glass Byleth had seen before, but that was quickly forgotten as Rhea turned it toward her face. 

It was her face, wasn’t it? The shape and placement of the features were recognizable enough (Byleth had never really known better when it came to paying attention to her appearance), but her once teal hair and eyes were now an iridescent mint. Byleth reached out a hand and grazed the silver surface, half expecting her fingers to go straight through and poke someone else entirely.

Byleth’s skull pounded as she realized she looked like a certain someone who used to sit on a throne and lecture her for turning back time. But Sothis had abandoned her, and if she really was this Goddess Rhea was speaking of, then Byleth had clearly not passed her holy judgment. 

“Lady Rhea, there must be some mistake. I don’t feel any different.” Well, that wasn’t necessarily true, but if anything, the removal of the divine pulse made her feel more vulnerable, not less. 

“All in due time, my child.” Rhea lowered the mirror to give the professor a respite from her shock. “At the end of this moon, you will go to the Holy Tomb so that you may receive divine revelation from the Goddess.”

“The Holy Tomb?” Byleth turned to face the Archbishop, but her gaze wasn’t returned. Lady Rhea stared ahead, eyes aglow at some faraway beacon Byleth could not see. 

“Saint Seiros, the first soul to be gifted power from the Goddess, received her revelation there.” Her voice was distant, reverent. “She was told it was her sacred duty to save the people of Fodlan, and that she must use her power wisely in order to lead them.” 

Byleth highly doubted that any Goddess in her right mind would trust a former mercenary with saving the people of Fodlan—especially one who could hardly _interact_ with the people of Fodlan as it were. And besides, hadn’t Sothis already given her something to do? Something about looking after her students—

Byleth shot up. 

“Leonie! Is she—?”

Rhea smiled and returned her eyes to the vessel. Even amidst all the time and tragedy that had transpired, the Goddess was still so selfless in watching over her children. 

“She’s under Manuela’s care in the infirmary.”

Byleth scrambled to her feet, taking notice of the plush surroundings and the moonlight shining through the window. This must be the Archbishop’s quarters, and it must be very late. She felt a strange embarrassment at the intimacy of it all, wholly unable to account for her earlier ease and comfort. She hadn’t felt at all like herself upon waking, but then again, feeling like herself was a tall order these days. 

“Please, Lady Rhea, let me go to her.” 

Rhea knew that if Byleth had any idea how long she had waited for this reunion, she would not dare ask to leave. But her ignorance would only last a short while longer, and the Archbishop felt a sudden shame at her selfishness. So she mustered a sad smile, taking comfort in the knowledge that a few moments away was naught in the grand scheme of their eternal chronicle. 

“Of course.”

Byleth bolted from the room. How dare she sit there in comfort, letting her hair be stroked while her student hovered between life and death? Sothis had only asked one simple thing of her, and she was already failing. Some vessel she was. 

She rounded a corner and hit something very solid. And warm. 

“Professor!” Byleth didn’t need to look up to identify the owner of the low voice. The prince really did have a knack for serendipity. 

“Dimitri, I’m sorry but I have to go see Leonie—”

“Professor Manuela has closed her off to visitors for the night. I was just down there myself.” His words possessed all their usual princeliness, but there was an enervation to them as well. Byleth was noticing that in his voice more and more lately. Perhaps it had always been there, and she had just been unable to hear it before. 

“Is she alright?” The despairing sincerity in his professor’s eyes made the prince want to lie—remembering how he once thought she didn’t care for her students made him feel like a fool. Her words were always brief and measured, sure, but there was an honesty to them that Dimitri craved. An honesty that propriety and adoration compelled him to reciprocate. 

“It’s difficult to say. She was hit with some potent dark magic, but at least Professor Manuela knew what it was. It’s actually a bit remarkable we’ve managed to go without such an incident before now.”

That wasn’t necessarily true. Many of her students had fallen to the exact same curse, even the one standing before her. Byleth’s blood ran cold as she calculated just how many of her students would have met a similar fate had it not been for that precious force that was now lost.

“And everyone else?” 

“No one else sustained anything but minor injuries.”

Byleth allowed herself a sigh as some of the tension and self-loathing left her. Even if she had failed them, her students were saved by the grace of _something_. Still, the fact that she had nothing to do with their survival only made her feel more unworthy of Rhea’s words and any power the Goddess may or may not have given her.  


“Professor, I should tell you that Mercedes is quite shaken by the whole experience. She feels like she couldn’t do enough. I keep telling her it’s not her fault, that you can’t save everyone, and she did her best given the circumstances, but…”

Dimitri wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence. He had felt like a hypocrite trying to comfort his sobbing classmate, brutish hands unsure if she wanted a hug or would rather be left alone entirely. It was much easier to just hand her over to Annette than to admit that he had no right to talk about saving anyone.

“What are you doing here?” The professor’s sudden question took Dimitri by surprise. He wasn’t expecting an interrogation, and she had never cared much about enforcing monastery rules before. 

“Sorry?”

“You said you were just down at the infirmary. What are you doing on the third floor?” Byleth unconsciously arched an eyebrow in a way that made Dimitri put a hand on his neck and look away, grimacing. 

“In truth, I...I wanted to check on you. Lady Rhea took you so quickly from my arms—”

Dimitri hadn’t meant to let slip that he carried her all the way back. Or maybe he had. The action wasn’t done with any ulterior motive—he wasn’t Sylvain, for saints’ sake—but he couldn’t quite determine why he would want her to know about the only time he had ever thanked the Goddess for his inhuman strength.

She wasn’t surprised by the information—of course Dimitri would insist on being the perfect prince he was and carry her all the way back to the monastery. But she was supposed to be taking care of her students, not the other way around, and the image of Dimitri holding her like some helpless child made a disgraceful warmth rise to her cheeks. Her fingers jerked automatically.

“Dimitri, it’s late. You should rest.”

The prince nodded, but neither of them moved. Something unspoken lingered in the space between their bodies for several agonizing moments before he broke the silence. 

“Professor...are you okay?”

He had asked her this question almost every day since her father’s death, but this was the first time he would remember doing so. Byleth wished she had more practice answering it. 

“There’s been a lot to take in lately.” The distance she put between herself and the assessment did not go unnoticed. Dimitri knew firsthand just how punishing it could be to acknowledge your position within unpleasant events.

“I won’t presume to know all of the unique circumstances of your situation, but I certainly understand—to some extent.”

“How so?” Byleth was ready to take any excuse not to talk about herself or the complicated feelings she certainly didn’t have. If the unthinkable should occur, and something bubbled up inside her that she couldn’t stop, she wouldn’t be able to take any of it back. Her mind flashed with the memories of scenes that never were and could have been. Evasion and deflection was her only defense now. 

“Ah, well...you’re familiar with the unfortunate circumstances of my imminent coronation.” Byleth silently nodded. Even she could see the dark penumbra the Tragedy of Duscur cast over each of the Blue Lions. There was a range to their suffering, or at least the degree in which they showed it, but it was grievously clear that they were all forced to grow up just a little too soon. 

“One morning I woke up same as ever. Then everything changed in an instant, and that night I went to bed as...someone else. And the boy I was before became a stranger.”

And while Dimitri would never say such spiteful words aloud, he had long accepted that he hated that boy. So ignorant of the future and ungrateful to the present, a head full of wishes and prayers to the Goddess to watch over loved ones doomed to disappear. 

_Are you really so different now?_

Dimitri unconsciously gritted his teeth at the intrusion, but as he looked down at his professor’s curious eyes he couldn’t find the strength to disagree. 

“Professor? Do you think the Goddess really cares about us?” The childish question tumbled from his lips without asking his permission to do so. But as she ruminated on his query, he found that an increasingly demanding part of him needed to know the answer.

“I’m not sure.” The words were careful, but honest. If Sothis truly was the Goddess, and Byleth still wasn’t sure she believed that, then she had at least cared at some point. She did allow Byleth to turn back time on the basis of saving mortal lives, after all. But Byleth couldn’t help but think that any Goddess who cared about the salvation of its people wouldn’t have entrusted their power to a demon like her in the first place. 

“Since...that day...I’ve always thought the Goddess just watched us from above. That we could beg and beg to be saved, and she would never so much as offer her hand. And if she did, we lacked the means to reach out and grasp it.” There was an obvious shudder down his spine as he said the words. Byleth chose not to acknowledge it. “After you vanished I thought it was just another of the Goddess’s cruel jokes, another reason to believe that one’s suffering doesn’t have a finite end. That the chaos of life and death continues regardless of our capacity to handle it.”

Dimitri paused for a moment, the gravity of what he was going to say next weighing heavily on his tongue. 

“But then you returned.”

Byleth met Dimitri’s eyes. There had always been a darkness there—she had noticed it the first night they met all those moons ago—but now an earnest light cut through the bleak expanse. To think she was in any way responsible for that brilliance made the sunken place where her heart should be constrict. Something in those blue eyes seemed to ignite as he continued with growing intensity.

“I don’t know what that means, or what it says about the others that never did. But no matter what happens or what anyone may say, know that I plan to stand by you, Professor. Through anything. Until the bitter end.”

She recognized his words as ones she had once taken away. Leading him on some foolish, dangerous errand hadn’t changed how he felt. He trusted her, implicitly and without question, just as Leonie had done when she followed her into the Sealed Forest. Just as her students would continue to do, no matter how many times she cried or put them in harm’s way. Byleth could not stop her mind from rapidly flipping through images of the violent purple seeping through Leonie’s shirt, of Ferdinand’s lifeless eyes, of all the disaster and catastrophe she was now powerless to stop. 

“I can’t save you, Dimitri.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I can’t save anyone. I’m sorry.”

Dimitri was unsure how to reply, and some small part of him wondered if perhaps he _was_ asking to be saved. He was suddenly six years old again, demanding some petulant request from an adult with real problems and desires too weighty for his small mind to grasp. He really was no different from that detestable, naive boy after all. 

A disdainful wetness clung to Byleth’s lashes as she turned away, escaping from the prince who had offered up his heart. It was the only way she could think to tell him that she never had one to give back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF this chapter was hard to write, and not just because I want to shake everyone's shoulders and tell them to be kinder to themselves. Byleth/Dimitri scenes always take me forever because of how much they don't say to each other. 
> 
> So that brings me to a question: would y'all rather have shorter chapters posted more frequently? Or chapters of this length posted once (maybe sometimes twice) a week? For reference, if I hadn't included the Byleth/Dimitri scene at the end in this chapter, I probably could have posted it two days sooner. I thought it was important to include in this chapter for thematic reasons, but I also don't want people to lose interest between updates. Let me know!
> 
> Mental health disclaimer: 
> 
> Mental health is always difficult to write about, and I would really hate for anyone to feel like I'm misrepresenting or insulting their personal experience. I am unfortunately limited to research and my own brain chemistry, so I chose to write Byleth's anxiety and subsequent dissociative episode the way I experience both of those things. It's usually a lot of soft focus, vision warping, and then retreating somewhere far inside my brain while I run on autopilot for a little bit. Sometimes I get the classic "feel like I'm watching a movie of myself" feeling. Sometimes I won't remember I did something until a few hours later (this is sounding scarier than it is—I promise I am mostly okay. This doesn't happen often anymore, and when it does I have a great support system). Anyway, just to give you some background on what you can expect these depictions to look like moving forward. 
> 
> That is all to say: I'm trying my best. Thank you so much for reading :)


	4. Abdication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a haphazard attempt to run from her new responsibilities as the Goddess’s vessel, Byleth accidentally makes a universe-altering decision.
> 
> Content warning: this chapter includes some non-graphic suicide ideation. If you’d rather avoid that then feel free to skip past the first set of asterisks, and I’ll include a brief summary of the scene in the end notes. I’ll also update the tags since this unfortunately won’t be the last time this theme shows up.

Byleth tore down the stairs, frantically putting as much distance as possible between herself and that promise in the prince’s eyes she could never hope to make good on. The sooner he understood that, the better. It would probably even save his life one day. 

She considered locking herself in her room until she remembered what a flimsy barrier that had been last time. Dimitri would probably come knocking and apologize for something he didn’t need to apologize for, then he’d sit on her bed and place his warm hand on her cheek and—

Byleth didn’t let herself finish the thought. She couldn’t navigate what lay at the end of it, and she certainly wasn’t interested in filling in the edges of the map. No, she needed a refuge where she could not be so easily discovered and cared for. She flung open the nearest door and felt the cool night air on her feverish cheeks.

“My teacher!” Edelgard spun around. Even in the dark, her white hair brilliantly reflected the little moonlight in the sky. “You’ll have to forgive me for breaking curfew. I come here when I can’t sleep. I despise being cooped up.”

“You’re fine, sorry for—”

“You look like you could use some air. Would you care to join me?”

Her teacher was flushed and shaken—an unusual sight, but the stoic ex-mercenary had been full of surprises lately. Edelgard couldn’t quite tell if she found these burgeoning expressions comforting or unnerving. The fallibility was dangerously intriguing, but Edelgard couldn’t face the itching fear that if she peered too closely at the glass, she'd catch a glimpse of her own reflection. 

Byleth could do nothing but nod and hope the darkness obscured any lingering wetness on her face. She stepped out on the terrace and leaned her arms on the bannister. Spring hadn’t quite arrived yet, but the chill was a welcome respite from the unbearable warmth she was running from. The two stood in their own thoughts for several moments, looking out at the empty courtyard below. As always, Byleth was grateful that Edelgard didn’t mind forgoing small talk. 

“What do you plan to do after graduation?”

Or maybe not. But the way Edelgard posed the question didn’t sound like a mere excuse to break silence. Regardless of intentions, Byleth didn’t like thinking about the future—especially now that she was powerless to change it—and she wondered if perhaps she’d have to risk the vulnerability of her own quarters after all. 

“I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

“You’ve been through so many changes lately.” Edelgard turned to look at the professor, calculating eyes narrowing in on a spot just above her collarbone. “I’m sure it’s difficult to imagine returning to mercenary business as usual.” 

Byleth followed the princess’s eyes to the luminescent locks of hair on her shoulders and snorted. The new color was far too conspicuous for effective mercenary work, what with the way it practically seemed to glow in the dark. Almost like Edelgard’s. 

“You make a good point.”

“But it’s not just an outward change, is it?”

Her teacher’s silence was the only response Edelgard needed. It was almost pitiful how easy she had become to read compared to her early days at the monastery. Perhaps her father’s death had cracked her more deeply than just a few tears would allow, but something about speculating on the situation felt uncomfortably intrusive to Edelgard. She never did like thinking about Captain Jeralt for too long. The princess compartmentalized the nettlesome thought and easily found the fortitude to meet her teacher’s eyes again. 

“Such changes can be...difficult. We can never truly go back to who we once were. No matter how hard we try.”

Byleth allowed herself a small half-smile in spite of herself. Her students’ attempts at understanding did not make humanity any more appealing. 

“You sound like Dimitri.”

The princess let out a sudden, derisive bark of a laugh that made Byleth jump. 

“Ha! Well I give you permission to throw me off this balcony if I ever start to sound too much like him.”

Byleth cocked an eyebrow at the remark, and even the dim light could not hide Edelgard’s blush. 

“My apologies, I suppose I shouldn’t speak about my fellow classmates in such a way, especially the future King.” Edelgard turned and leaned her arms on the railing again, sighing. “I just have a feeling His Highness and I wouldn’t exactly see eye to eye on certain matters that are important to me.”

Byleth copied her movements and turned her attention to the courtyard below once more. The twisting sensation in her stomach suggested that perhaps bringing up the Crown Prince was a bad idea, for more than one reason. “I can’t say I envy either of your positions.”

“Power is a difficult thing to wield. Especially when you didn’t ask for it.” Edelgard knew the curse of wearing such a heavy mantle, but the memories of those who suffered for its obtention made it one worth bearing. “Those with power are forced to make difficult decisions, and those without are forced to bear the brunt of them.”

Byleth possessed neither the resolve nor the energy to argue with her student, but she couldn’t help but feel like Edelgard had it all wrong. Possessing power had made it _easier_ to make decisions, not the other way around. Choices had no consequences when she could just rewind them and choose a different path. No, now it was the responsibility that was suffocating, especially when Byleth had no say as to whether or not she deserved it, and no means with which to run from it. 

“How will you use your power, my teacher?”

The sudden question made Byleth freeze as her mind ran all of the possible permutations for Edelgard’s meaning. It was impossible for her student—for anyone—to know about the divine pulse. Byleth was the only one who ever seemed to remember what was erased (and thank the saints for that)—the only one forced to bear the relief and agony of all things sickening and wonderful that never came to pass. 

“I don’t know what you—”

“I saw what you did to Solon.”

The calculations in Byleth’s brain stopped cold. To Solon? She hadn’t done anything to Solon. She had certainly wanted to—she could hardly bear how much she had wanted to make him writhe, make him suffer—but there was the paralysis, then the darkness, then Leonie, then…

A collapsed and contorted figure. Something grotesque and gruesomely deformed by what couldn’t possibly be human hands. 

“I...I don’t remember doing that.” 

“But you know it was you, don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. Byleth stared at the ground, unable to meet the gaze of another truth she could not escape. Her fingers twitched uncontrollably, as if their relentless shaking would somehow bring her back to a time before this one—before her transformation, before the monastery, before her existence—but Sothis’s curse stayed true. So, that damned “goddess” had taken _and_ given, it seemed. Byleth would have laughed into the night sky at the cosmic foolishness of it all had the consequences not been so soberingly immediate. 

“You don’t deserve that power.”

Edelgard’s words cut like a sudden chill, but Byleth made no attempt to shield herself from them. She only remained silent as the princess sighed and gazed up at the thin sliver of moon, tiny crescents reflecting in her lilac eyes.

“I don’t think anyone does.”

Byleth sighed. “I can’t disagree.”

Edelgard cocked her head with a quizzical look at the professor. Byleth felt no shame in speaking honestly—after all, denying responsibility was always much easier than accepting it—but clearly Edelgard had not been expecting such a candid response.

“This world is ruled by powers that people were born into, powers they didn’t earn on their own.” The Imperial Princess slowly closed the distance between herself and her teacher as she spoke, each step taken with a meticulous gravity. The crescents in her eyes had vanished, consumed instead by an indisputable, blazing flame. “Wouldn’t things be easier if those powers just...disappeared?”

For the first time, Byleth could admit to herself that maybe she wanted _everything_ to disappear. It was a faint desire that began with her budding emotions and only intensified after her father’s death—a nagging whisper that suggested the only way to make life easier was to simply stop existing. The comfort of turning back time dulled the intrusive thought—a reality so easily manipulated was not one that required confrontation—but without it she was now laid bare to the sharp stabs of a relentless existence. 

“Perhaps you have a point.”

“I think about that a lot. About the way our obsession with crests twists and corrupts. Turns us into something inhuman.”

Byleth’s mind flashed to a face so much like Sylvain’s, scarred, disfigured, then horrifically altered into something unholy and monstrous—as if the crest stone had found the darkest part of Miklan’s heart and made him wear it as punishment. Byleth couldn’t stop herself from fantasizing about some crestless version of herself holding the Sword of the Creator, only for it to look into her heart and find nothing, banishing her from existence and her students’ memories in one merciful stroke. 

“I have plans for the future, my teacher. Plans that I must see to fruition. Plans that I _will_ see to fruition whether you choose to support them or not. But you should know—”

Edelgard grabbed Byleth’s hands with an impetuous urgency. Both women found the close contact unexpected, but neither moved to break it. It was an action both would normally evade, yet there was an unreluctant comfort in practicing it with each other. 

“Solon and Kronya are just the beginning. There’s an entire host of foes who wish to use your power to take lives without impunity, all in pursuit of some goal those who died will never get to see.”

The princess paused before continuing her thought. Her next steps had to be careful ones—surely Hubert would think she had already said too much—but she had to know if what she saw that day in the Sealed Forest was real, or just a trick of the light.

“And I’m sure Lady Rhea has her own plans for your power as well.”

There it was. The flame in her teacher’s eyes. The reflection Edelgard had been so afraid to see was now shining clearly and unobstructed, and it only made her burn more brightly.

“If you truly do not wish to see that kind of power in the world, then the path I’m carving is the only way. I hope regardless of what you think now, you will someday understand that.”

Byleth felt an increasing heat in Edelgard’s hands, and in that heat she felt the might to consume the old world and forge new ones. This was a fire that could burn without Byleth’s assistance—without her ownership—and there was a lightness in her chest as she embraced the freedom of letting such a fierce blaze scorch the earth without the burden of igniting the spark or putting it out.

“I think I already understand.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

Edelgard released her teacher’s hands, and Byleth felt as if some spell had been broken. She watched as the princess looked back over the edge of the balcony, lost in some unknowable thought for several wordless minutes.

“My teacher...I’m taking my leave to Enbarr tomorrow. I have some business to attend to there. Would you care to accompany me?” She did not look to her teacher once as she offered the invitation. “I’m sure it would be nice to escape the Archbishop’s clutches, even if just for a short while.”

Byleth couldn’t help but agree. 

****

*** * ***

She didn’t have much time before the carriage to Enbarr departed, but Byleth had to see Leonie with her own eyes before she felt fully comfortable leaving. She hoped it was early enough that Manuela would still be sleeping and therefore unable to bar her entry.

Byleth rounded the corner and saw the infirmary door was open—a good sign. She hurried down the hallway—moving especially quickly past her father’s old office—and slipped into the open room. 

Her heavy breathing stilled at the sight of Leonie lying in the infirmary bed. She was still unconscious, but she at least looked stable and well-cared for. There was something morbidly fascinating about the way her student’s face—usually stuck in a permanent determination to prove that she had nothing to prove—had softened into something almost serene. Byleth was suddenly taken with the instinct to wrap her father’s apprentice in her arms and stroke her short auburn hair and tell her everything would be okay. But of course, Byleth was exactly the reason why things were not okay, and whatever urge she felt was hastily washed away by a feeling she was starting to recognize as shame. 

“Hey, Teach.”

Byleth jumped and whirled around to see Claude perched at a desk in the corner. The bags under his eyes suggested he had been there all night. 

“Saints, Claude! Don’t do that.”

Byleth was starting to wonder if the three house leaders were in a secret competition to see who could catch her off-guard the most. Claude pointed to his resting classmate and put a finger over his lips to quiet the professor, but it couldn’t hide his devilish grin. 

“You really think the new Saint Seiros should be blaspheming like that?” Even in hushed tones, the Golden Deer leader managed to saturate every word in utter mischief. Byleth rolled her eyes, and the sight utterly delighted him. Extracting emotions, even small ones, out of his stony-faced professor was far more satisfying than any strategy game. 

“Is that what they’re saying about me?”

“If by ‘they’, you mean a very enamored prince, then sure. You should hear the way he talks about your new eye color, it’s very cute.”

Byleth chose to ignore him and turned to Leonie again, if only to hide that detestable warmth in her cheeks. Even if Dimitri _did_ have anything to say about her new appearance—which she didn’t totally believe was the case—she doubted he would have anything more to say after last night. That had been her intention after all, so there was no reason now for her throat to tighten at Claude’s teasing. 

“You know, I’ve heard stories of people like you.”

And with that, Claude had started another one of his games without informing Byleth of the rules or the objective. Without her divine pulse, she would have to blindly move pieces around on an invisible board until she was able to ascertain his true aim. 

“Mercenaries?”

“Sure.”

Byleth didn’t need to turn around to know there was a maniacal twinkle in Claude’s emerald eyes. She sauntered to Leonie’s bedside table and pretended to take an extreme interest in the many vials and herbs Manuela had laid out. 

“I doubt any of them were true. Mercenaries tend to exaggerate.”

“Sure, sure. But what if I told you there was a particular ‘mercenary’ with green hair and green eyes that made quite a stir a few lifetimes ago.”

Byleth whipped around, eyes narrowed and patience thin. 

“Look, these Seiros comparisons are going to get old real—”

“I’m not talking about Seiros.”

Claude stood and began taking slow, calculated steps toward Byleth—not unlike how Edelgard had done the night before. Everyone seemed to want something from her: allegiance, knowledge, salvation—but only the Imperial Princess understood that all she had to give was her sword. Pledging anything else would only result in disappointment—or worse. Byleth was not looking forward to whatever it was that Claude desired.

“There are legends about a being with remarkable powers that arrived in Fodlan without warning. She was hailed as a savior to humanity, with superhuman strength and the ability to heal even the most critical of injuries…”

The Leicester heir’s voice was barely a whisper now. 

“Some even say she could turn back time.”

The professor’s fingers spasmed at his words. It was the same frantic motion she had done over and over again that day in the Sealed Forest, after Leonie had been hexed. It was entirely possible that it was just a nervous habit, but something about the gesture seemed too deliberate—almost like she was casting some sort of spell. The whole puzzle was deliciously vexing, but if Claude was close to the solution, the professor’s face didn’t show it. He spun back around and returned to his perch. 

“Then one day she disappeared. And the next thing you know, normal everyday mortals start showing up with these weird powers...powers that are passed down through bloodlines and allow people to wield mighty glowing weapons. Sound familiar?”

“Sounds like she gave her powers away.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they were taken from her.”

The smirk on Claude’s face dissipated and twisted into something more serious. If Byleth didn’t know any better, she would have called it concern. 

“I don’t know what happened when you disappeared that day in the forest, and I have a feeling you won’t tell me—”

Claude paused to see if Byleth would deny it. Her blank stare quickly solved that mystery.

“—but there are people out there who would love nothing more than to get their hands on whatever power the Goddess did—or didn’t—give you.”

It sounded like a warning, perhaps even one with good intentions, but Byleth had an unshakeable inkling that Claude might just be one of those people. She didn’t want to think what someone with his brain could do with that sort of power. 

Her eyes wandered from his to the parchment on his desk. Even from upside down, Byleth could tell the writing wasn’t in their language. In fact, it didn’t seem to be any sort of language at all, but rather a series of nonsensical shapes and symbols. 

“What are you writing?” 

Claude’s eyes darted to the parchment, and he hastily placed a hand over it. His face showed no signs of worry, but Byleth had the feeling that if he could turn back time, he would be flexing his fingers right about now. 

“Oh this? Just a little game I play with myself. You know what they say about idle hands.”

“It doesn’t look like any game I’ve seen.”

“So now you’re the only one that’s allowed to have secrets?” Something dark flashed in Claude’s eyes—so rapid Byleth almost missed it before it was replaced by his practiced joviality.

“I’ll see you around, Teach.”

****

*** * ***

Byleth had never taken passage in a carriage before, but she figured most were not as lavish as this one. The plush ruby interior was made of an impossibly soft material that she wanted to nuzzle her face into like a cat.

She of course did no such thing. 

Edelgard and Hubert sat across from her, the retainer wearing a permanent glare as if Byleth’s mere presence was the highest offense possible. The Imperial Princess paid no mind to his malicious aura as she leaned back, reading a letter with a soft, dreamy smile. The look on her face was foreign yet familiar to Byleth. She had seen it cross some of her students’ faces before, particularly on that day when they all drove themselves into a frenzy giving each other white garlands. Byleth still didn’t fully understand the gesture, but it made her uneasy enough that she exhausted all of her divine pulses that day to avoid being on the receiving end of one. 

“A secret admirer?” Byleth immediately regretted the question. Whatever fond sentiment the letter had elicited was swiftly forgotten as the princess folded it back into her coat with a frown. Hubert’s scowl intensified. 

“Something like that.” 

Byleth hadn’t meant to intrude, but she couldn’t deny that the thought of someone like in Edelgard in something like love was curious. She privately wondered which one of her students had managed to thaw the Imperial Princess’s icy exterior, and if her own shell could be so easily broken by the right person. 

The remainder of the ride to Enbarr was long and quiet, the latter of which did not bother any of the passengers. Byleth could tell they were getting closer to the imperial capital by the increasing luxury of their surroundings. Adrestia had always been a wealthy nation, and while some attributed it to blessings from the Goddess, her father was always quick to point out its unending imperial conquests. Still, it hadn’t stopped him from taking high-paying jobs in the region, and the familiarity of some of these villages was enough to make Byleth stop looking out the window for the rest of the journey. 

The carriage stopped, and the shadow of the Imperial Palace loomed over them. Hubert was quick to rise, hurriedly shooing away the servant that opened the door so he could be the one to hold it for Lady Edelgard. 

The Imperial Princess stepped out and was immediately greeted by a flurry of flustered maids who dashed about trying to find a pot of her favorite tea. Clearly their arrival had not been announced. 

Byleth rose to follow, but Hubert put up a hand to stop her. 

“Lady Edelgard, might I have a word with the professor?”

Byleth didn’t relish the idea of being alone with Hubert, but his refusal to look at her made it clear she did not have much say in the matter. Edelgard gave Hubert a warning look before cautiously nodding her assent and heading into the palace. Her retainer bowed behind her, then stepped back into the carriage, slamming the door. 

“I do not know why Lady Edelgard has chosen to trust you. If it were up to me, things would have gone _very_ differently.”

Even to a former mercenary and a supposed vessel for the Goddess, Hubert was intimidating. His eyes, now boring into her own, crackled with a vicious lightning that manifested in his impressive magical prowess on the battlefield. Byleth had made a mental note long ago to steer clear of his curses, but that didn’t mean she had to weakly accept his threats. 

“I’ll make sure not to leave things up to you then.” 

Hubert sniffed, clearly unamused by Byleth’s retort. 

“You sound like you’ve been spending too much time with that von Riegan boy, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

Byleth let out a soft laugh. The mental image of Claude and Hubert spending any time together at all was delightfully absurd. She had a hunch that the Leicester heir would find it just as amusing. 

Her current conversation partner, however, found it anything but. 

“Lady Edelgard is too noble to tell you this, but I am not. She is putting herself, her ambition, and the very future of our nation at risk by protecting you. There are some very powerful people that want you dead, _Professor_ , and she is the only thing standing in their way.” He leaned forward, absinthe eyes daring to electrocute her. “If you fail to show the proper appreciation, I will not hesitate to stain my hands so she does not have to. Do you understand?”

He refused to break his gaze, searching for any sign of fear in the mysterious professor’s eyes. What exactly Lady Edelgard saw in her, he did not know, but he was duty-bound to trust her wisdom and serve her whims—

“You know I could give you detention for this, right?”

Hubert emitted a short, severe laugh, the brief flash of humanity somehow more disturbing than his usual daunting glower. 

“This silly school game...it will be over soon enough.” Hubert’s noble upbringing stopped him from spitting at the ridiculousness of it all. “Come. Lady Edelgard is waiting.” 

Byleth and Hubert emerged from the carriage and continued in cold silence to the throne room. The palace was undeniably opulent, but the absence of bustling human activity made it impossible to ignore the overwhelming sterility. Suddenly Edelgard’s standoffishness made a lot more sense, and Byleth wondered if her own living quarters betrayed anything she would rather keep safe. 

The pair reached an ornate set of golden double doors, which were opened by a bowing servant dressed in the same lush fabric from the carriage interior. Byleth resisted the peculiar temptation to reach out and touch it, but she would have to find a nonchalant way to ask Edelgard about the material later. 

At the end of the long room was a high golden throne, occupied by a weathered man with a sallow face and dark circles under his yellowed eyes. As Byleth and Hubert stepped forward, Edelgard took the man’s hand and knelt before him. 

“Father, it’s time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes Empress Edelgard! I definitely see Edelgard and Byleth as mirrors (or rather, twin flames) for each other, and I’m really interested in the ways they can use each other to confront and avoid their own humanity (or sometimes, lack thereof). But don’t worry, our other lords will not be forgotten! I promise I’m not trying to trick you all into reading a CF novelization lol.
> 
> For this fic I was really interested in expanding upon the powers Byleth is given once she fuses with Sothis. The power she (inadvertently) used on Solon basically drains someone of their life force in a really gruesome way (we only serve imperfect gods in this house).
> 
> I’m really going to try to get the next chapter uploaded on Dimitri’s birthday (Dec 20th). It will be pretty Dimitri-centric, but from a Blue Lions perspective we haven’t heard from yet! I’m excited. 
> 
> Thanks again so much for reading! This is pretty much my first dip into the fanfic world, and your encouraging comments and kudos mean the world to me. 
> 
> And a quick summary for those of you that skipped the first set of asterisks: Byleth and Edelgard talk about the corrupting power of crests, and Byleth learns that she herself was the one that did that horrible thing to Solon’s body. Overwhelmed by this knowledge, and the pressure she feels from Rhea and Dimitri to be some sort of god, she hands the keys to Edelgard. Edelgard doesn’t need Byleth to lead or be responsible for anyone’s salvation and is just going to do her own thing no matter what, which is comforting to Byleth given her current emotional infancy. The suicide ideation unfortunately comes from Byleth, who fantasizes about disappearing so she doesn't have to deal with these confusing new feelings, her father's death, and the overwhelming responsibilities thrust upon her. 
> 
> I started a twitter specifically for fanfic. I'll mostly be posting drafts that I think are funny and previews that I think are exciting. @frackingfic
> 
> Happy holidays!~


	5. Paralysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One mask comes off and another quickly follows. A little Sylvain POV for our Holy Tomb chapter + associated Faerghus Four angst. Sorry in advance that Sylvain thinks in run-on sentences.
> 
> Also: Sylvix has entered the chat. 
> 
> cw: self-destructive tendencies and sleep paralysis

Sylvain came to the Officers Academy with one goal: 

Do the absolute bare minimum to keep his shit together. 

Turns out it wasn’t really that hard. It took barely any effort to barely pass his classes, his stupid crest filled in for whatever training he didn’t feel like doing, and there was no shortage of warm bodies to adore him when he didn’t deserve it and hurt him when he did. 

No, it was everyone else’s shit he needed to worry about.

Sylvain had deluded himself into thinking that four years was enough time for the dust that was Duscur to settle, but he had clearly underestimated the effect a regicide, a homicide, and a genocide could have on a person. Or three people. 

The Regent King had arranged for Ingrid, Felix, and Sylvain to meet the Crown Prince in Fhirdiad and travel to Garreg Mach for the start of the school year. All four of them would have preferred riding horses—or in a certain stubborn someone’s case, _walking_ —but that crusty bastard Rufus insisted a carriage would make a better first impression on all of the eligible nobles from Leicester and Adrestia (after all, those crest babies weren’t going to make themselves). Never mind the fact that all of the eligible nobles from Leicester and Adrestia would probably be arriving in their _own_ carriages, but Faerghus only had the one decent-looking coach so these four would get to share. Lucky them. 

The five—four—friends used to reliably meet once every season or so, but that changed when everything else changed, and now they had all changed too. Well, except Sylvain. He hadn’t lost a parent or a brother or a fiancé, so he got to stay the same and give everyone something shitty to hold on to so they didn’t fall into the chaotic vortex of suffering that constantly threatened to swallow them whole and spit out their bones. 

Or something like that. 

So now the infamous Faerghus Five— _Four_ —were together again for the first time since the end of the world and saints, they were practically adults now, and maybe if Sylvain closed his eyes long enough he’d wake up at some council table as an official advisor to King Dimitri the First, giving his opinion on taxes or land holdings or whatever. Sylvain decided he would try to keep his eyes open for as long as possible. 

Dimitri— _His Highness_ —had grown like a big, handsome weed. The same delicate features that got him mistaken for a girl now just made him stupidly hot, and of course he had absolutely no idea and would probably be completely oblivious to any flirting at the academy. It was a good thing too, or he might be more insufferable than Sylvain. 

The insufferable Sylvain tried not to think of the unanswered letter from the prince that had been sitting in his desk for four years. He had wanted to respond, he really did, but he couldn’t find anything useful to say. Days turned to moons turned to years, and Sylvain eventually convinced himself that Dimitri had forgotten about the whole thing because he never got another letter from him again. If His Highness _had_ remembered, he certainly didn’t show it, even though his hug had been a little too gentle and was over just a little too quickly. Poor guy probably just hadn’t had a proper hug in a while—the King Regent and his new wife didn’t strike Sylvain as the affectionate type. 

His Highness now also came with a permanent plus-one, but he didn’t seem much for hugging either. Sylvain had to admire Dimitri’s audacity to stick it to the nobles by insisting the Duscurian accompany him everywhere. But being Crown Prince was not the same as being King, and all the righteous indignation in the world couldn’t have stopped Rufus from keeping Dedue out of their carriage and out of everyone’s sight. 

Sylvain had seen Ingrid the most recently, and she didn’t look too different from the last time he was in her neck of the woods. A little taller, maybe. Sylvain thought if she finally grew out those bangs she could probably break a few hearts, but he knew better than to say so out loud. 

Sylvain was secretly hoping for something else about Ingrid to change, but a tired sadness she was too young to know still lingered behind her eyes, and Sylvain was starting to think it might never go away. It made him feel like a sick bastard, but he was jealous that she was able to feel that way about someone. Arranged marriages were a depressing inevitability for them all, but Ingrid and Glenn had been one of the lucky ones—two dumb kids actually in love who never had to worry about being shipped off to someone who only cared about their crest. 

But then their luck ran out, and Ingrid entered a nightmare of a betrothal, even by Faerghus standards. Because the horrible, noble truth of it all was that Ingrid was never promised to Glenn, she was promised to the future Duke of Fraldarius, and that title didn’t die with him in Duscur. It just got passed on to someone else. A very reluctant someone else. A very reluctant and impossibly stubborn someone else.

“I’m not riding with the Boar.”

Dimitri, Sylvain, and Ingrid were already loaded into the carriage—their recent growth spurts making the fit pretty tight—and everyone was ready to go except for one particularly testy swordsman. 

“Felix Hugo Fraldarius, that is your future _King_ , and you will address him as such.”

Felix turned away from his father, hiding the blush that arose from being called by his full name. Sylvain smirked and mentally filed that trick away for later. 

“Please, Rodrigue, it’s fine. I don’t wish to cause any trouble.” Dimitri’s gloved hands awkwardly rested in his lap as a steady redness went up to his ears. Okay, so maybe not _everything_ had changed. 

But really, His Highness was being so damn princely about the whole affair it would have been annoying if it wasn’t so sad. He could slap Felix across the face and no one would blame him, and even if they did, they couldn’t do anything about it because he was, well, royalty. But apparently years of being shut up in a castle without any letters from your so-called friends doesn’t make someone crazy. It just makes them really, irritatingly polite. 

“Come on, Felix, His Highness doesn’t bite, see?” Sylvain waved a hand in Dimitri’s face, and he could feel the heat coming off of it. Warm blood was bred into all the Faerghus family trees—or else the whole lot would have frozen to death centuries ago—but those Blaiddyds were fucking furnaces.

“You weren’t there—”

“ _Felix._ ” Rodrigue grabbed his son’s arm and dragged him out of earshot for what looked like an especially icy lecture. 

Dimitri sank as low into his seat as his royal upbringing would allow, which wasn’t much, and maybe they all should have pushed harder on the whole riding horses thing. 

Whatever Rodrigue said to Felix seemed to do the job because the swordsman eventually climbed inside, slamming the door before his dad could say goodbye. Felix tried to simultaneously sit as far away as possible from both Dimitri and Ingrid—a pretty futile task given the tight quarters—but once he got settled into his territory, it wasn’t too cramped. Hell, Sylvain figured they probably could have fit one more. 

The carriage lurched forward and they were finally on their way. Sylvain let out an easy sigh and spread his legs as he took in the dour entourage. Felix sulked across from him, face hidden in darkness and looking anywhere but here. To Felix’s left sat Ingrid, simply staring at her lap and clearly resigned to a long and silent ride to the monastery. And next to Sylvain was the Crown Prince himself, eyes shut and fists clenched as if he was trying to will himself somewhere far away. 

Okay, so maybe they had all decided to be miserable, but Sylvain was finally free from his freezing home and his overbearing parents and his asshole brother, and dammit, he was going to have fun. 

He smirked as he put his hands behind his head. 

“You know Ingrid, you could probably break a few hearts if you finally grew out those bangs.”

Ingrid’s face went from confusion to anger in record time, and she kicked Sylvain in the shins _hard_ , accidentally jostling Felix in the process. Dimitri’s eyes popped open, the commotion enough to shake him out of whatever transcendental meditation he was performing, and Felix snapped his head at the good-for-nothing ginger with unparalleled venom. 

“Can you go _five seconds_ without saying something completely idiotic?”

Everyone froze and stared at him. It was the first time they had gotten a good look at his face that day.

“What.”

Well he was fucking gorgeous, first of all. His skin was unfairly smooth, and those famous Fraldarius cheekbones had finally decided to announce themselves some time in the last two years. His raven hair brought out golden flecks in amber eyes that threatened to obliterate Sylvain if he got too close, and damn, maybe he _wanted_ to get too close just to see what it felt like to shatter. 

But that’s not why everyone was staring. 

“ _What._ ” 

“You look just like...”

Dimitri trailed off, but it did nothing to dissipate the heavy name that weighed on each of their lips. 

Felix leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.

“Just wake me up when we get there.”

Fuck, he looked even prettier when he was sleeping.

Things didn’t get much better when they settled in at the monastery, but they didn’t get worse either. Sure, Dimitri wasn’t sleeping and Felix wasn’t being nice and neither of them wanted Ingrid’s help, but at least Sylvain could say something stupid and they’d all glare at him and be on the same side for a little bit. 

Surprisingly, their dysfunction didn’t translate to the battlefield, and Sylvain wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a morbid one. But as he watched himself watch his friends kill something that used to be his brother, he couldn’t help but admire the fluidity of their synchronized destruction. The professor’s calm commands in the nightmarish face of that _thing_ only bolstered their viciously unspoken harmony, and maybe this _wouldn’t_ be the time Sylvain started something that got them all killed. 

Sylvain wondered what it would take to be on the receiving end of his friends’ coordinated violence. He could make Ingrid apologize on his behalf to a thousand noblemen and she’d probably never strike him like _that_ , and Dimitri would probably never use his bare hands to crush his claws—no matter how many years it took Sylvain to write him back. 

The creature howled in pain as Felix slashed its side, and Sylvain realized he hated how loyal his friends could be. 

And it was true, Miklan was a piece of shit—had always been a piece of shit—and he _deserved_ this, but Sylvain was also a piece of shit and if Miklan deserved this then he did too, and the only reason Sylvain hadn’t turned into that thing was because he had something that Miklan didn’t that Sylvain didn’t deserve at all. 

Felix and Ingrid distracted the beast on one side, and with a final command from the professor, Dimitri hurled his lance and aimed between the eyes. That ridiculous crest of his flashed over his shoulder, and at last Miklan was killed by a power he could never hope to have. 

When they got back to Garreg Mach, everyone treated Sylvain like such a _hero_ —like he was so brave and noble for standing outside of his body like an idiot while someone else cleaned up another one of his messes. Sylvain didn’t sleep that week, instead spending his nights finding anyone who would have him. And when he inevitably fucked up and forgot their name or flirted with someone else, a blistering insult or a slap to the face was never far behind. 

Exhaustion finally caught up to him, but it turns out that was just a cruel joke because he would wake up in the dark, completely unable to move as black tendrils snaked over his limbs and creeped up his chest. He would scream over and over again for Felix or Dimitri to save him, but he could only choke out hoarse whispers like wisps of smoke into dry air.

But one night something must have gotten through the walls because the tendrils abruptly vanished and Felix appeared above him. 

“Fe...what are you…”

His beautiful face was stricken with the shadow of something Sylvain couldn’t identify in the dim light. But whatever it was quickly melted into the usual scowl as Felix crossed his arms.

“I told you not to call me that anymore.”

“Sorry...force of habit.” Sylvain rubbed his eyes, still getting used to the fact that he could move again. “Mind lighting some candles?”

He watched as Felix lit the room with that careless flick of his fingers Sylvain had come to admire. Magic was so _fascinating_ , but any time Sylvain tried it he knew he must be doing something wrong because it came to him too easily and interested him too much. 

“Are you going to sit?” Sylvain sat up to make room on the bed. Felix simply stared at the spot, as if the two of them hadn’t shared a bed hundreds of times as kids. Not that Sylvain would necessarily call his invitation _sharing a bed_ , but he figured that he may as well have asked Felix to take off his clothes and climb under the covers.

Sylvain tried not to think about that as Felix sat—fully clothed—on the edge of the bed, as if trying to make as little contact as possible with anything Sylvain had touched. Maybe Sylvain should have been hurt by the distance, but the unspoken barrier was comforting in its own perverse way. People either hated him or wanted to use him, and at least if Felix hated him it meant he felt strongly about it either way.

So Sylvian put on that grin he knew Felix hated so much and even threw in a wink for good measure. 

“Wanna tell me what you’re doing in my room in the middle of the night?”

Sylvain wanted to reach out and touch Felix’s knee. Maybe Felix would punch him if he did. 

“I heard noises.”

Sylvain waited for Felix to start berating him about keeping it down or suffocating himself with a pillow, but Felix must have been too exhausted for a tirade because he simply let the words hang in the air.

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

Felix sneered, and Sylvain remembered how annoying apologies could be when you were already at your wit’s end with someone. Sylvain was once again ruining someone’s night with his selfishness. He thought about taking it a step further, about leaning forward and grabbing Felix’s thighs and running his hands up and down the thin fabric of his sleeping clothes. Then Felix could slap him and reject him once and for all, and Sylvain wouldn’t have to think about whether or not he had actually wanted to do it.

“You haven’t been around much since—”

“Yeah I guess I haven’t.”

Sylvain didn’t mean to snap, but he also really didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. Sylvain could face the truth: his brother was a monster, and then he died. What he couldn’t face was the tepid tone in Felix’s voice that was starting to suggest that Sylvain needed someone’s pity. 

“It was hard to watch.”

There it was again, and Sylvain wondered whether a kick or a kiss was more likely to make it go away. But Sylvain did neither and instead just watched as Felix stared at the wall shared with Dimitri, as if sheer force of will would let him see through to the other side. Maybe this conversation wasn’t really about Miklan.

“He’ll be okay, Felix.”

Felix’s nose wrinkled in confusion before he turned to look at Sylvain. It was a rare moment of eye contact and for a split second, Felix was seven-years-old again and crying to Sylvain because Dimitri had accidentally hit him too hard. But it went as quickly as it came, and soon he was the grouchy, touchy, exasperated swordsman that leaned his head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling as if it had insulted his mother. Sylvain wanted to have something useful to say, but he was a bad friend and instead couldn’t stop wondering when Felix’s jawline had gotten so sharp. 

He didn’t stay long— _”I’m going to the training grounds”_ —but something between them thawed after that night, and from then on Sylvain could knock on Felix’s door and pretend to need help with homework and instead say dumb things until he fell asleep at his friend’s desk. Sylvain would apologize profusely every morning, and Felix definitely seemed to mind, but neither of them did anything to stop it. 

And so their totally-not-planned routine continued for a few moons until it was time for them to accompany the Professor to the Holy Tomb. The whole thing honestly sounded pretty boring, but His Highness wouldn’t shut up about the _honor_ of it all and was making the whole class go. Apparently Edelgard hadn’t even _told_ the Black Eagles the ceremony was happening, and Sylvain was pretty jealous of the nap Linhardt would be taking while the rest of them pretended to feel something spiritual.

Anything to do with the Professor was always so damn important to Dimitri. He had come back from that secret battle in the Sealed Forest (being left out of _that_ sure made Sylvain feel good) prattling on about the reincarnation of Saint Seiros, and Sylvain half-expected the guy to command everyone to start calling him Wilhelm. His Highness had never seemed particularly religious before, but Sylvain wasn’t going to doubt the power of a body like the Professor’s to get a man down on his knees. And Dimitri seemed like the worshipful type. 

But when the supposedly blessed day itself arrived, His Highness and the Professor refused to meet each other’s eyes, and Sylvain wondered what sordid gossip he was missing. He made a mental note to ask Mercedes about it later—she was somehow always the first to know when someone had kissed someone else. 

Felix seemed to think something was amiss too, but Sylvain doubted it had anything to do with kissing. His eyes kept darting about as he repeatedly ran his hand through his bangs, and as much as Sylvain was enjoying the show, it was starting to make him nervous. 

“Hey, everything okay?” Sylvain clapped a hand on Felix’s shoulder and let it linger because he was a no-good, selfish scoundrel. Felix let him keep it there, probably because he was a better person than Sylvain. 

“Something just feels…” Felix turned his head, and Sylvain saw the same face that had appeared above him the week after they killed Miklan. And maybe it was all the time they were spending together, or maybe it was how much Sylvain had been staring at him in class, or maybe there was some sort of divine power in this Holy Tomb after all, but Sylvain was finally able to recognize that face as fear. 

It was a face that asked for answers that Sylvain didn’t have—could never have—because he only had one thing to offer this world. Only one thing that anyone could ever want from him that Felix could never possibly need. 

So Sylvain laughed. 

“What’s the worst that could happen? Someone feels the holy spirit a little too strongly?”

Felix’s cheeks reddened, first in embarrassment and then in anger, and he shoved Sylvain’s hand away and started stalking the perimeter. 

Sylvain couldn’t know how much he would think about that moment over the next five years. He couldn’t know how much Felix’s words would haunt him when he woke up unable to reach for a shoulder no longer there. And he couldn’t possibly know that even through the thick layers of mud, rain, and carnage, the frightened electric amber of Felix’s eyes would be the last light to flicker across his memory.

Because Sylvain couldn’t know these things, he was just as shocked as everyone else when Felix cried out that someone was there, and the Flame Emperor appeared with an army of imperial guards. Just as frozen when the Professor whipped her flaming sword at the villain, cracking its mask and revealing the Imperial Princess underneath. And just as paralyzed when the boy he never bothered to write back turned into a beast, and hurled his lance to strike between purple eyes. 

The lance missed its mark, and the beast roared with an ancient fury as it lunged forward to claim its prey. Imperial soldiers tried to take it down, but the beast only snapped their necks and crumpled their skulls like parchment. Sylvain watched himself watch his friends do nothing to stop the raging monster that looked so much like their future King. 

The Professor sprinted to stand between Edelgard and the demon, and it looked for a second like it was going to snap her neck too. But then there was a cobalt crackle of lightning, and Dimitri flew backwards, head cracking the stone floor. 

A mage appeared in a flash of violent pink light, and Sylvain just barely caught the Professor staring incredulously at her hands before another flash warped her and Edelgard somewhere far away. 

Lady Rhea screamed at everyone to _bring them to her_ , and Sylvain noticed that Dedue was the only one who disobeyed her orders to gather the fallen prince into his arms instead. 

They never did find Edelgard or the Professor. Hubert had disappeared too, and imperial carriages came for the remaining Black Eagles before they had time to pack their belongings or say goodbye. 

As the sun set, Sylvain found himself looking for warm bodies again. Ashe was glued to a library desk, frantically writing letters to his siblings. Ingrid had taken a horse and didn’t tell anyone when she would be back. Mercedes was with Annette in her room, and Sylvain couldn’t bring himself to intrude on what sounded like a lot of crying. Dedue was watching over Dimitri, still passed out cold in the infirmary, and when Sylvain knocked on Felix’s door, there was no response. Sylvain roamed the village, looking once again for anyone who would have him, but the winds had irreversibly changed and no one was in the market for his brand of misery. 

That night, Sylvain woke up unable to move. He waited for the black tendrils to snake around his body, but they never materialized. Instead he watched—and could only watch—as a shadowy figure in the corner held the Lance of Ruin aloft, its malevolent glow pulsating in time to the creature’s bloodlust. The family relic that doomed his brother grew brighter as the creature steadily stepped forward, and Sylvain could just make out the faint hues of ginger hair and caramel eyes. 

No one came to wake him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few different notes on this one:
> 
> -I know this was a bit of a different style since I’m usually weaving in and out of different characters’ brains, but this chapter felt most natural coming from just Sylvain’s POV. One POV per chapter won’t be the norm, but I think I am preferring it for chapters that are describing canon events (like the Holy Tomb) just because I can make them a little different from what we see in the game. 
> 
> -I decided to go ahead and add the “Major Character Death” tag to this fic. It didn’t explicitly happen in this chapter, but there are some implications I want to be sensitive to. We are going to be getting into it pretty soon, and there will be quite a bit of death. If you would like to know in advance which characters are going to die, shoot me a DM over twitter (handle below) and I would love to help you feel as prepared as possible for any potential triggers!
> 
> -Everyone’s sleep paralysis hits a little differently, so I just wrote it the way I experience it, with a few tweaks to make it more specific to the Miklan situation. 
> 
> -Now that we have more of our favorite grouchy swordsman, I’m pleased to tell you all that my username comes from the way my best friend described teatime with Felix.
> 
> -I finally got a twitter, so come welcome me into the 21st century! I’m really only using it to post fic updates/previews and connect with other FE3H fans for now. @frackingfic


	6. Current

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth, Dimitri, and Edelgard all get what they want. 
> 
> Content warning for (very accidental) animal killing, warfare, and mild skin picking (not supposed to be OCD). Keep the general tags for this fic in mind as well.
> 
> [Today’s dream pop music inspiration for this chapter.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkqbY0oGKQ&ab_channel=WarpaintVEVO)
> 
> HUGE thanks to [tastyweeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastyweeds/pseuds/tastyweeds) for the beta <3

If Byleth sank deep enough, the warm water would creep over her ears and muffle the humming space between them. If she submerged her whole head, her eyes would scrunch shut and her nose would blow soft bubbles until she forgot how to breathe in. 

The imperial baths were massive, almost massive enough for her to plunge some place murky and deep, caught in an undertow that carried her far away from the lights of a world she never cared to understand.

But Byleth had always been a strong swimmer despite herself. 

So instead she simply slouched into the water and calculated how long she would need to drown her palms for the cobalt stigmata to disappear.

She could still feel the lightning ignite her veins as the prince arced through the air, his skull cracking against the stone with a perfect echo. She could remember no desperate, instinctual flex of her fingers, no cold water rising in her lungs when time didn’t shatter—just a simple curiosity as she looked down at her smoking hands and wondered how badly they would scar. 

Then she was somewhere else, stuffed in a carriage that dashed down forgotten roads at an impossible speed. Branches whipped the windows and wind rattled the walls, but Byleth didn’t look up once from the sapphire scorch marks that stained her palms like ink. 

She was remarkably hollow for someone who had just killed one of her students. 

Byleth delicately scraped the diminutive bubbles collecting on her leg hairs. The marks should be worse. They should blister and peel. They should sting when they hit the water and hiss when they meet the cool air. She shouldn’t be able to hold a sword for weeks, and when she picked one up again she should be rusty and clumsy and vulnerable.

But her hands felt as capable and dangerous as ever. She could strike the whole world until her palms were mottled black and blue, then wait for civilization to rebuild and do it all over again. 

She had done what Sothis asked. She had looked after her student, and the supposed Goddess, in her infinite wisdom, had provided.

It was a fitting, empty reward—a sobering reminder that demons couldn’t trick themselves into good intentions. Byleth could once and for all dismember the childish delusion of playing schoolteacher, of pretending she had any guidance to offer to kids barely younger than herself. The Ashen Demon only served one purpose, and it went to the highest bidder. 

Byleth sank under the water once more, deciding that perhaps Sothis was a merciful goddess after all. 

*** * ***

In his dreams, he was just a boy looking out the window.

The kingdom and its masses were a million miles below, too far for his desperate reach. He longed to jump from the ledge to join them, but Father had instructed him to stay out of the way and wait for something to happen.

Dimitri didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he liked the simple structure of obeying the rules and the praise that often followed. 

So he waited. 

A small chirp drew his attention to the windowsill. A tiny bird had found its perch, cocking its head curiously at the young prince. 

Dimitri held out his palms, and the bird hopped inside with an unusual trust. He cupped his hands over his small new friend and waited. Mother would come in eventually, and maybe this could finally bring a smile to her face. 

It was only seconds before the bird began to squirm, wriggling for an escape. 

“Please wait—“

It pecked his palm and a blue something flashed next to his ear. Dimitri whipped his head to catch it, but it had vanished.

He slowly looked back down at his hands. The bird had stopped moving, and his fingers were warm and wet. 

Dimitri screamed. 

There were hurried footsteps down the hall, and Lady Patricia swung the door open.

“Your Highness, are you—“

She covered her mouth in horror and looked away, retching at the gore.

“Mother, I didn’t—“

“Don’t call me that.” Her lilac eyes snapped onto his blue ones, the cold disgust burning into his memory before she dry heaved again. Fat, salty tears on his fevered cheeks went ignored as she cried out for help and fled from the boy with blood on his outstretched hands. 

“It’s time to wake up now.”

The soft voice called to him from above, luring him away from his childhood bedroom. 

“Dimitri.”

His eyelids were heavy, and through the mist of softly broken sleep he could just make out the wisps of light green hair.

“Professor...?”

The prince reached out a feeble hand with boyish hope. 

“Shh...she’s far away now. She can’t hurt you any longer.”

There was something cool on his forehead, and the Archbishop’s face came into focus above him. 

Dimitri blinked in rapid succession, eyes adjusting to the light. The midday sun broke through what he now recognized as the infirmary windows. Dedue stood watch in the corner, despite the empty chair next to him.

“The professor wouldn’t…”

There was a sudden iciness on his sternum, and he jumped as he realized the Archbishop was touching his bare chest. Dedue bristled. Dimitri tried to sit up and edge his torso away, but her hand stayed firm. 

“Be still, my child. Look.”

He followed her fingers to the azure blossom blooming on his chest, spindly fractals creeping up his collarbone as if struck by lightning. 

“ _She_ did this to you.”

Dimitri’s memory returned in jagged fragments too sharp to hold in his bare hands.

A shattered mask. Lilac eyes. A visceral crunch. Something warm and wet on his fingers. 

Mint. Cobalt. 

“She…”

He desperately wanted someone to deny it, but Dedue could only look at his feet, knowing silence was softer than the spoken truth. 

Dimitri raised a trembling finger and lightly traced the cerulean branches on his chest. They weren’t tender to the touch, and there was no sharp ache when he stretched his muscles. In fact, there was no lingering pain in his body at all. 

“What is it?”

“A dark curse long forgotten to this world.” The Archbishop’s eyes flickered somewhere far away before snapping to Dimitri’s, cold and alarming. 

“You are to stay far away from her, even in battle. Do you understand?”

He gulped as she towered above him, demanding his assent. 

Dimitri had always liked the simple structure of obeying the rules and the praise that often followed. There was a deep, primal comfort in being trusted to do what he was told, in someone believing in his promises and the ruined hands that carried them out.

_Haven’t you broken enough?_

His stepmother emerged from the Archbishop’s shadow, her thin skin tautly stretched over where her revolted eyes and upturned nose should be. The fleshy sheet parted only for a thin sliver of a cruel grimace that spat tokens of the princeling’s infinite failures.

Dimitri tore his eyes from the tormented visage and nodded fervently. 

The Archbishop smiled and took his fingers, stroking them softly. He instinctively reached for gloves that weren’t there, but she paid no mind to his vile knuckles as she bent down to ghost his ear.

“I’m going to tell you about someone very important to me.”

Just outside the door, Claude scribbled something on a scrap of parchment. 

*** * ***

Petra’s raw cry reverberated across the monastery as she eviscerated a knight without meeting their eyes. Caspar swiped away stray tears in between frantic punches, and Linhardt stared blankly ahead as he tried to heal a dead soldier whose name he could never remember. Ferdinand sat steady on his horse, but his trembling lance betrayed him as each strike found another target. Bernadetta could only hold her ears and scream as the deafening booms of combusting gunpowder ricocheted in her skull and shook her blood.

The sun was rising on their midnight assault, and still they fought for a future Edelgard knew they didn’t yet want. But this wasn’t the crumbling monarchy their parents had crippled, and for all their sheltered existence, they were wise enough to end up on the right side of a war. 

The only classmate who didn’t join her was the one who didn’t have to, and not even the heaviest axe could fill the space she left in Edelgard’s hands. 

The Emperor tried not to think of the scent of sweet apples as she surveyed the unfolding warfare from her advantageous position among the bombards on the southern hill. 

She was confident in her exacting command, unashamed of her uncompromised ideals. She proudly wore the sharp, singular focus forged by a suffering it would take her former classmates a thousand lifetimes to know. She had long accepted that the path she cut was one she may have to walk alone, and it was foolish to hope for anything but empty hands, even at the end of it all. 

But sometimes she was just an eighteen-year-old girl, haunted by the need for someone to adore her. 

The girl grit her teeth and braved a glance toward the mercenary on her right, shrewd green eyes fixed to the combat below, Sword of the Creator glowing ominously in her clutch. 

Edelgard should be happy, standing here with her. She had been something close to that when her teacher defended her against the crazed prince. In fact, Edelgard was almost _giddy_ as the carriage flew through the forest to Enbarr, and for one breathless night, she allowed herself the fantasy that someone would finally walk hand-in-hand with her into the flames.

But her teacher emerged the next morning with a price tag, and now she was just another mercenary protecting the imperial coffers.

The sellsword let out a soft, pained noise and clenched her fist.

“Everything alright?”

She seemed to take a second to register Edelgard’s question before releasing her fist and absentmindedly wiping the sweat on her shorts without a response. 

“Lady Edelgard!”

There was a strong blast of wind from above as General Ladislava and her wyvern blocked the hazy eastern sun.

“I have the Archbishop’s position! She’s on the third-floor terrace!”

The Emperor nodded, deftly concealing the exhaustion that comes when the end of a conflict is finally within reach.

“Are you ready, my teacher?”

“Byleth.”

Edelgard spun her head to the mercenary, who only stared ahead, computing the shortest path to her objective.

“Pardon?”

“I’m not your teacher anymore.”

Byleth pulled a black hood over her iridescent locks and thrust the Sword of the Creator into Edelgard’s hands without so much as a sideways glance.

“My—Byleth—”

“Too conspicuous.”

The Ashen Demon unsheathed the dagger at her hip and held it outward at her chest as she darted down the hill and vanished into the clash.

The Emperor looked up at Ladislava and pointed to where Byleth had disappeared. 

“Keep her in your sight.”

“Yes, Lady Edelgard.”

The general kicked her wyvern’s side and soared forward to follow the mercenary from above. Edelgard felt small as she gazed down at the ancient sword, now dull and lifeless outside of her teacher’s grasp. 

*** * ***

Her father would have been proud of the sum she negotiated for the job.

But now wasn’t the time to think about her father, or what the dead might say about business they couldn’t mind. 

Byleth’s fingers stiffened around her weapon. Her palms had started tingling when they arrived at the monastery, and the sensation only intensified as she pushed deeper into battle. She tried to ignore the vexing intrusion as she weaved through the slaughter, the blood of strangers and otherwise collecting on her cloak.

She slithered between the realms of the living and dead like a shadow. Any would-be assailants were silenced before they could cry out to the Goddess to save them, every swing of her dagger punctuated by a foreign pulse beating its last. It wasn’t long before the monastery entrance was straight ahead, and Byleth could chart a clear route through the viscera to slip inside unnoticed. 

But Sothis never made things simple.

There was a sudden shock from her palms, the jolt sharp enough to make the dagger jump from her tight grip. She crouched for cover to retrieve the weapon, hands shaking as they simmered with arcs of sapphire lightning. 

The wind picked up, and a powerful gale blew back her hood and sent swirls of dust into her vision. She hoarsely coughed and shielded her face with a twitching forearm. 

Several seconds passed before the gust quieted. Byleth blinked the dirt from her eyes, and through irritated tears caught a vicious flash of blue and gold on the horizon.

Her palms crackled without warning, and the prince doubled over, clutching his chest. 

His head snapped up, and their bloodshot eyes locked across the impassable distance. His chest heaved and he struggled to straighten his spine as she slowly rose, unblinking.

Echoes of war cries and splatters of bloodshed raged like a tempest around them as an unseen cord tied from his heart to her hands throbbed and threatened to snap. His royal blue cape flapped violently against an orange sky ablaze with dust and ashes, her own black cloak billowing like silhouetted smoke. The ice in his eyes cut through the carnage and asked for something Byleth could only answer with an involuntary jerk of her fingers. Whether it was to extend her hand or hurl her dagger or turn back time, she never knew, but all oaths were forgotten as they faced each other in the eye of the storm at the precipice of a possibility. 

Her palms arced powerfully again, and Dimitri fell to his knees, pounding his chest and breaking their trance. 

Byleth felt the shatter of a promise she didn’t know she was keeping as she pulled up her hood and slipped away from the boy back from the dead. 

*** * ***

Edelgard picked at the bumps along her jaw, the slight stings a reminder to reality. Hubert’s plan was supposed to be simple, but never foolproof.

Her teacher would incapacitate the Archbishop in a sneak attack. General Ladislava would follow from above, swooping in to ferry Byleth and the hostage to Hubert’s western post. There, he would warp them to a nearby carriage destined for Enbarr, where guards were waiting to take Lady Rhea prisoner. 

Simple.

Never foolproof.

Her teacher was taking long—too long—and the sun was steadily rising over her falling soldiers. She repeated the steps of the plan over and over again in her head, as if the mantra would manifest their success. 

The formidable clopping of hooves beside her interrupted the chant. 

“Edelgard.”

“Uncle.”

She addressed him without tearing her eyes from the clash below, her voice slick with the type of politeness reserved only for those who least deserved it. Lord Arundel had always possessed a peculiar talent for staying away from the front lines until there was criticism to offer. 

“You told me she could be trusted.”

Edelgard swiveled to face the daunting man on the imperial sporthorse. His purple eyes shot straight to the dead relic in her hands. She tightened her grip. 

“And I stand by that assessment.”

Arundel tensed but made no motion toward the weapon. 

“We can’t afford to lose any more troops. I’m withdrawing my men.”

He jerked the reins to pivot his horse, pausing to look back at her once more.

“We’ll discuss your lapse in judgment later.”

Edelgard returned her focus to the Black Eagles’ line of defense as her uncle huffed and trotted away. She closed her eyes and allowed herself exactly two deep breaths before facing the true extent of the damage.

“Randolph.”

The sandy-haired general rushed to her side, heavy armor clanking in time to his hurried steps. 

“Yes, Lady Edelgard.”

“How many troops have we lost?”

“Approximately two thousand, my lady.”

A low growl rose in her throat. Two thousand souls who would never see the future promised to them. Her uncle had been right about one thing at least. 

“And our demonic beasts?”

“The Knights of Seiros have disposed of them more quickly than anticipated.”

Shit. Edelgard scanned the blazing horizon for any sign of a wyvern with good news. Byleth had proven her capability a hundred times over, but perhaps Hubert had underestimated the Archbishop. 

Or perhaps she had overestimated her teacher.

Just then, a blinding green light obliterated the rising dawn as a sonic roar knocked allies and enemies alike to the ground. Edelgard groaned, rubbing her eyes as she struggled to sit up in the dirt. Through the neon glow, she could just make out the shadow of great wings unfolding across the sky, like craggy mountains rising across the emerald expanse. A whisper came to her lips: part curse, part prayer. 

“The Immaculate One.”

The glare dissipated and the monastery emerged from plumes of dust, half-collapsed and crumbling. The terrible, beautiful, pearlescent dragon scaled one of the remaining spires and screeched, proclaiming its pride and anguish to the mortals below.

The Emperor rose, lifting the Sword of the Creator in the air and silently thanking Hubert for his peculiar penchant for contingencies. 

“Prepare the bombardment!”

Randolph scrambled to his feet and signaled to the great iron cannons, the soldiers staring in awe at the god they were asked to destroy.

Edelgard tried to steer her mind from the mercenary and onto the beast that kept its claws around humanity in the name of the Goddess. The bombardment afforded them the element of surprise, but their fixed position dictated swift, decisive action lest the target catch on to their trick.

There was a breeze from the east, and the flapping of wings indicated General Ladislava’s late arrival. 

“Lady Edelgard!”

The Emperor put up a hand to pause the preparations. The look on Ladislava’s face brought no comfort, and Edelgard’s patience was threadbare. 

“Where is she?”

“The professor was inside the monastery when it collapsed, my Lady.”

Edelgard swallowed thickly and unconsciously picked at a spot on her chin.

“Is she alive?”

“I do not know. But it may not be likely.”

If Lady Rhea didn’t eliminate her teacher, the bombardment surely would—by Hubert’s design, the siege was powerful enough to level the entire structure. The colorless Sword of the Creator weighed heavily in Edelgard’s small hands.

“Hold your fire.”

Randolph placed a cautious hand on her shoulder.

“Lady Edelgard, we have to—”

The Emperor shoved the encroachment away and snarled. 

“ _Hold your fire._ ”

Randolph gave the bombardiers another signal, and the Emperor scraped a fingernail across her chin hard enough to draw blood as she evaluated her next move. 

“Ladislava. Your wyvern.” 

Edelgard decisively stepped toward her, but still the general hesitated. 

“Lady Edelgard, allow me—”

“No.”

Ladislava exchanged a brief look with Randolph, but dismounted with no further protest. The two generals worked together to quickly fasten their Emperor into the saddle. 

With the holy relic in one hand, Edelgard pulled the reins, and the wyvern shot upward into the burning heavens. There was smoke in her eyes and blood in her throat and the screams of thousands in her lungs, and she faintly wondered what Hubert would think as she plunged into hell to find her teacher. 

*** * ***

Darkness blurred the edges of Ferdinand’s vision as he strained to keep his eyes open. He was vaguely aware that someone was dragging him in the mud while gentle fingers spread something warm into his leg. His head lolled back as his thoughts floated to fresh tea leaves and his soft bed in Adrestia.

“—green light—”

“—Lady Rhea—”

“—that dragon—”

The disjointed discussion was such nonsense it almost made Ferdinand chuckle. This certainly was an amusing dream.

“—his horse—”

“—completely crushed—”

His leg jerked painfully at the words. This dream was taking an unpleasant turn, and he would hear no more of it. He shut his eyes, finally resolving to melt away from the invasive noise, when both pairs of hands suddenly stilled on his listless frame.

“She made it.” 

Ferdinand creaked one bleary eye skyward. The mid-morning sun was black, blocked by skeletal wings that loomed larger and larger until they veiled the ochre clouds. 

A sublime glow broke through the darkness with a pull so powerful, Ferdinand could not stop himself from weakly trying to grasp it. Tears streamed past his temples and into his hair, carving canyons into the dried blood wrung by his lance. His wide pupil followed the light until the wyvern landed beside him with a punishing roar. 

With his last remaining strength, Ferdinand turned his head and beheld his Emperor on the wyvern’s back. Her amethyst eyes swore salvation as she looked down at him, steadying the professor with one arm and raising the fiery Sword of the Creator aloft in the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: The Conversion of Saint Ferdinand
> 
> Sorry this chapter took a little longer to come out! I had to rewrite the first part a few times before I was satisfied with it. The moment between Dimitri and Byleth at the Battle of Garreg Mach is also really narratively important, and I wanted to make sure it had the gravity it needed!
> 
> Some canon-divergent worldbuilding/misc. notes:
> 
> -The presence of a crest is known from birth, but they don’t start activating until around age eight. It’s customary for Blaiddyds to spend some time in isolation when their crest activation is near, since it can be pretty dangerous before they learn how to control it (and even then it’s not something that can ever be 100% controlled). 
> 
> -Dead Patricia’s face looks the way it does to Dimitri because he didn’t watch her die. Lambert and Glenn are covered in horrible burns and other injuries, by contrast. 
> 
> -I know nothing about horses, so I used SydneyHorse's [guide to Fodlan horse breeds](https://twitter.com/edelgardlesbian/status/1308891523078074369?s=20)—it’s a great resource!
> 
> -Still promise I’m not tricking you all into reading a CF novelization (I think I’m diverging enough from canon to make that obvious anyway, but I’m covering my bases just in case).
> 
> @frackingfic on Twitter if you want updates, previews, or just want to be Three Houses friends!


	7. Opera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years have passed. Everyone has become a master at putting on a show.
> 
> cw: little bit of Edelgard skin-picking again (not supposed to be OCD)

Dorothea lost track of how many times the curtain rose and fell over a face that wasn’t hers.

It was a mask she slipped on every night: alabaster paste, garish rouge, petal pink lips. The light green wig didn’t tug at her scalp, and the silky white gown slinked over her body like a second skin. Once the oppressive weight of the heavy gold cloak fell on her shoulders, the soft, steady ritual of forgetting herself was almost complete. 

Dorothea studied the mirror, gleaning the last shimmer of her own reflection before she donned the ornate headdress and stepped on stage to greet the people like a false prophet. 

The audience leapt to their feet with laughter and applause as she emerged from the wings with her first shrill note. She wagged her finger at the bumbling Tempest King, smacking his golden head and demanding he gather more soldiers for her to eat. She swore her revenge on the mighty Emperor in trills and coloraturas as the wealthy patrons gleefully booed their foe. 

Then she hit her next mark and sang her next note, faithfully following the fixed path that elicited the same laughs and the same gasps and the same claps in the same spots from the same nobles, night after night. It was easy entertainment to peddle, and it squeezed a powerful response from those who wrung riches from war. 

Only seconds seemed to pass before she neared the end of the first act. She navigated the familiar fog of her closing aria, absentmindedly treading the charted waters that would reliably rouse her audience. She sailed through the penultimate measure, the crest of her final note in reach, when her drifting focus caught a beacon of violet light in the crowd. 

Even under the dark hood that veiled them in shadow, it was impossible to miss those eyes. In them were faint flickers of lazy kisses in sun-soaked grass and late nights plucking snowy eyebrows; of furtive glances across candlelit halls and creaky stairs paved with moonlight; of cold cracked hands and sob-sodden shoulders; of the uncertainty in a future unwritten and the rejection of a reckless promise. 

Dorothea wanted to gasp at the sight. She wanted to freeze and forget her lines, and when the words finally came, she wanted them to escape her throat in feeble croaks. She wanted the audience to titter disapprovingly at their diva undone by a flash of purple, demanding refunds and sinking the show for good. She wanted time to dissolve, gifting her an eternity to re-memorize the lines and depths of the sharp amethysts and, maybe this time, finally share their vision. 

The music moved despite itself, and the final note soared through the soprano’s mask, haunting and clear. 

The curtain fell and Dorothea ran backstage, flinging open the door to her dressing room and letting it slam shut behind her. She gripped the back of her vanity chair, taking hard, uneven breaths in the mirror as a face she didn’t recognize stared coldly back.

When she returned on stage for the second act, the Emperor’s seat was empty.

*** * ***

****

The steady clacking of boots against slick cobblestone betrayed the would-be shadow. The small form sliced quickly through the empty city streets, teeth clenched in the cold, oxblood cloak nipping at her ankles. She pulled her heavy hood further down her face, anxious to hide any stray wisps of white lest they catch the glare of the crescent moon.

It was a rare beauty being alone, and perhaps in another lifetime she would have strolled aimlessly, wandering from tavern to tavern as ale warmed her blood and petrichor filled her lungs. 

But Edelgard could not afford the luxury of leisure. 

The bells in the town square tolled nine times, and the runaway Emperor picked up her pace, a soft curse escaping her lips in a puff of vapor. She had pushed her luck, and the war council would begin with a conspicuously empty seat at its head. Hubert was no doubt already warping all over the palace, hands shaking as his dark mind spun bloody daydreams of worst-case scenarios. Edelgard made a mental note to repay his anxiety with fresh coffee beans, although she suspected they might hurt more than help. 

Her brain smoked as it tried to forge a passable excuse. Perhaps she could tell them she was out with the ambassador from Rusalka—he was so disliked no one would even bother to corroborate the story, instead offering their apologies that she was subject to such an unpleasant interaction. 

Or perhaps such a childish ruse was unnecessary. After all, it wasn’t outside an Emperor’s duty to show patronage for the local arts, and only Hubert would suspect any previous history between herself and a particular performer. 

Edelgard’s boots pounded the ground more forcefully as she weakly laughed in spite of herself. _History_ was such a dramatic word for an otherwise forgettable footnote in her short story, and five years was more than enough time for such trivial matters to slip from her mind entirely. 

“Sneaking out at intermission?”

Edelgard didn’t jump at the voice, but her practiced fingers quickly slipped under her cloak. She clutched the dagger at her hip as she spun to face a narrow alley, muscles tensed and ready to snap. 

The unseen wraith’s heels clicked lazily on the stone, and the Emperor relaxed as moonlight caught a pair of glowing mint eyes.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Edelgard sighed and unclenched the dagger, stretching her tight fingers. 

The mercenary’s mouth twitched into an echo of a smirk. 

“What else do you think Hubert pays me for?”

“Company?”

Byleth snorted, and the noise made Edelgard feel like she had correctly answered a difficult question in front of the whole class. The former professor, ignorant to the effect of her indirect praise, turned to begin the chilly trek to the imperial palace. 

“We should head back before he starts another war.”

Edelgard’s short legs struggled to match the mercenary’s long, purposeful strides, but the cloaked pair eventually fell into an imperfect step, their arrhythmic battle march disturbing the night’s stillness. 

There was an unspoken understanding between them that limited discussion to only the most pressing of matters at hand. Each woman had come to regard the other as someone with neither the patience nor capacity for indulgent chatter, and neither was willing to test the frigid waters to see if the assumption was true. 

They walked together in their rehearsed silence for several minutes, the routine so mundane that Byleth almost didn’t notice when Edelgard was no longer beside her. The mercenary whirled around, fingers flying to her dagger. 

“Lady Edelgard, are you—”

The Emperor was hunched over, hands on her knees, shoulders shaking. She seemed to be sobbing, or perhaps she was violently ill—Byleth never claimed to be fluent in body language. In five years of personal hire, she had never seen Edelgard cry or vomit, and she couldn’t decide which fluid expulsion would make her more nauseous. She trepidatiously inched toward her former student, extending an unsure hand. 

“Lady Edelgard?”

The Emperor looked up, eyes crinkled and mouth wide. 

“I’m...I’m sorry,” she tried to choke out the words between giggles, but the mirth was too suffocating. Edelgard jerked her head back and cackled openly at the heavens, the peals cutting through the chill as they rose in volume and pitch. 

“I just remembered this one part in the show when…” Edelgard tried and failed and tried again to regain her composure as she wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye. “Ah...I’d probably butcher the joke, but _saints_ , it was...it was just…” 

“What?”

Byleth couldn’t help the corners of her mouth from rising at the sight of the Emperor so utterly unraveled by a simple stage show. 

“It...it was just _so_ like Dimitri.”

Byleth’s fingers unconsciously twitched at the name, her lips falling into a straight line. The Emperor’s laughter immediately ceased as she tilted her head curiously, eyes something dangerously close to perturbed. 

“Byleth?”

The mercenary turned to hide her face and tried to inject something at least lukewarm into her voice. 

“Come on. We’re late.”

*** * ***

Edelgard had always loathed confined spaces, and the walk down the narrow and tenebrous corridor to the council chamber was especially stifling. The other hallways in the imperial palace were similarly windowless, but something about this particular route always made her jaw tight and her breath shallow.

Byleth walked beside her, hood pulled up in some attempt at disguise, footfalls landing silently on the plush carpet. Her presence wasn’t anything more than a tepid comfort at best, but the simple consistency of her soft breaths at least gave Edelgard something to cling to. 

“You didn’t have to walk me this far.”

“It’s part of the job.”

Edelgard sniffed at the impersonal response and absentmindedly ran a finger along her jaw, nail catching on a scab from a few days previous. She stopped herself just short of reopening the wound, instead looking down to catch Byleth thumbing her palm. 

“Are they bothering you?”

“What?”

Edelgard jerked her chin at the blue stains on Byleth’s hands, just as vibrant as when they appeared five years ago. Byleth quickly hid them in her sleeves and mumbled something about a force of habit. Edelgard let the matter dissipate and made a mental note not to bring it up again. 

All too soon, the women rounded the corner and the mantle of the Emperor was upon Edelgard once more. She stared at the ornate door that separated her from yet another war council of circuitous arguments and repetitive grievances. 

The pair stood awkwardly for a moment, one waiting for an official dismissal and the other desperate to avoid giving one. 

“I’m sorry you can’t join us,” Edelgard whispered, with a furtive look to the door. “My uncle will be gone tomorrow.”

Byleth gave the slightest of shrugs, face impassive as if the man who wanted her head on a platter wasn’t on the other side of the door. An invasive heat rose in Edelgard’s throat as she combated the intrusive compulsion to slap the mercenary across the face, just to see if she would react.

“Good night, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard could only muster a nod, but it was dismissive enough. Her former teacher pivoted on her heel and slinked to her private quarters in the east wing, where the lighting was dim and the staff was minimal. Edelgard looked after her for a few moments, unable to shake the quiet anxiety that she would one day disappear entirely. 

Byleth faded from view, taking Edelgard’s last excuse with her. She took a deep breath, then pushed open the heavy door and stepped on stage. 

She was far past the point of expecting anything different, yet the needling energy of the room instantly set her on a dagger’s edge. The air was muggy with hot tempers that flickered in the gaslit lamps, illuminating their war rooms until dawn arrived to offer respite. 

The scene was set so predictably, Edelgard could have staged it from memory. Count Bergliez, the Minister of Military Affairs, was already his usual shade of purple, dabbing his perspiring forehead fruitlessly as he gnashed his teeth. Count Hevring, Minister of the Interior, sat rigidly straight, sharp tongue spitting icy lacerations too quickly for anyone to retort. Ferdinand was furiously taking notes on each one, muttering under his breath as if unable to write the words unless he spoke them aloud. General Ladislava was ever the air of professionalism, her unflappable concentration not betraying any hint of exasperation toward her hissing colleagues. Lorenz, the Ambassador from Gloucester, seemed to serve no other purpose than to make disapproving faces at his teacup. Lord Arundel, seated at a conspicuous distance from the others, noticed Edelgard first, his violet eyes darting straight to hers with a wordless _you’re late._

The others at the table followed Arundel’s line of sight and abruptly stood to greet their Emperor. 

Edelgard graciously nodded to the room with a practiced half-smile, taking notice of two empty seats at the large rectangular table. One at the head for her and one to the right for—

“Lady Edelgard.”

A flash of pink light startled Lorenz so terribly he almost spilled his tea with an indignant _“Now really!”_

“I’ve been looking for you.” Hubert’s voice shook, imperceptible to everyone else but loud as cannonfire to Edelgard. He placed a trembling hand on her shoulder, which she patted with terse affection before gently extricating herself. 

“I wasn’t alone.” Her words were curt, but Hubert understood the implicit softness behind them. He solemnly nodded, saving his interrogation for safer company. Edelgard avoided her uncle’s suspicious gaze and strode to take her place at the head of the table, sitting quickly as to allow the others to follow suit. Hubert took his place on her right, and Ferdinand pushed a mug of something warm in his direction with an earnest smile. Hubert scoffed at the offering, but took it and drank deeply anyway. 

With everyone settled back in their seats, Edelgard clapped her hands in a show of forced enthusiasm. “I apologize for my lateness, everyone. Would someone mind catching me up on what’s been discussed thus far?”

“I took notes!”

Ferdinand shot up, placing one hand on the table to steady his bad leg. The counts rolled their eyes and tittered in displeasure. Ferdinand did not seem to notice as he cleared his throat to begin reading the minutes.

“At the ninth evening bell, the Imperial Committee of Military Affairs commenced its biweekly meeting. Acting Secretary to the Emperor Ferdinand von Aegir took the minutes and roll call.”

Ferdinand cleared his throat once more. 

“Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg. Absent. Lord Volkhard von Arundel. Present. General Ladislava Novotna. Present. Advisor to the Emperor Hubert von Vestra. Present. Then absent. Then present again. Then absent. Then—”

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard closed her eyes softly in a futile attempt to impede the rapidly approaching headache. “If you don’t mind, I believe we can skip the formalities and move on to a quick summary—”

“I’ll give you a quick summary!” Count Bergliez rose, one hand clasping his soaked handkerchief, the other pointing an angry finger at Count Hevring and Lorenz. “These two noble _cheapskates_ are withholding valuable resources from the war effort!” 

“I’m not _withholding_ anything,” Count Hevring rose neither physically nor emotionally, much to Count Bergliez’s vexation. “I am simply asking we give the budget another review before choosing to rely, once more, on the generosity of Hevring County.” 

Count Bergliez slapped his hands on the table and leaned forward with a growl, wood creaking under the force. 

Edelgard put up her hands to initiate a ceasefire between the two counts, who reluctantly followed her cue. She shifted her attention to the stoic general on her left. 

“Ladislava, what’s the latest report from the warfront?”

“Lady Edelgard,” the general nodded in deference from her seat. “The situation at the Kingdom’s borders remains unchanged. Their defense is simply too strong. Our numbers are dwindling, and morale is low.” 

The news, though same as ever, was still met with the predictable grumbles and groans. Edelgard crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. 

“Morale is low? Was my manifesto distributed to the troops last moon?”

Ladislava looked down at the table in a rare display of unease. 

“Yes, but—”

“What good is a manifesto if half your army can’t read it?” Count Hevring sat back, his nonchalance more menacing than any tirade. “The last five years of war have created a generation of illiterate pawns who can’t even read about the lofty ideals they’re dying for.”

Count Bergliez sat back down, murmuring something about agreeing on something, for once. 

Ferdinand slapped his hand on the table, the sacred ritual of the roll call entirely forgotten. “This is exactly the type of issue Lady Edelgard aims to fix! Our planned reforms for a universal education would provide every youth in Fódlan with a path to literacy regardless of status!”

“That’s a nice thought, boy—did you put that in the manifesto none of them can read?” Count Bergliez roared at his own joke, which Hubert met with a soft tap of his fingernails on the table, instantly sending the count into sobered silence. Edelgard had established strict rules against hexing in the council chambers, but any movement of the dark mage’s quick fingers was still enough to set the attendees on high alert. 

Edelgard discretely tapped Hubert’s foot in a silent show of gratitude. The advisor laid his hand flat on the table, allowing the Emperor to seize control of the room once more. 

“Count Hevring,” Edelgard took a deep breath, taking her time to recalibrate the teetering balance of power. “Perhaps we can negotiate new terms for a loan.”

Arundel sniffed. He rarely attended these meetings and spoke few lines when he did, preferring instead to nonverbally communicate his disapproval toward his niece.

The green-haired count followed the lord’s cue and scoffed. “Perhaps you can explain, _Lady Edelgard_ , why I must raise taxes on my people for your war while the Gloucester lordling gets to holiday in Enbarr twice a moon without contributing a single gold piece.”

Lorenz stood with an overly-rehearsed grace, setting down his virtually untouched tea. “You know as well as I that the situation within the Alliance is still fraught. Claude insists on maintaining an outward facade of neutrality until the Empire or the Kingdom makes a decisive move.” He punctuated the line with an unnecessary flourish as he took his seat again. “He has the majority support in this decision. Our helping hands are tied.”

Edelgard closed her eyes again and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, did you say the Empire _or_ the Kingdom?”

“Yes.” Lorenz blinked rapidly at her as if the answer were obvious. “My apologies, Lady Edelgard, but it would be naive to assume that he would not try to join forces with the Kingdom should they prove to be the stronger ally.”

“Would that not fracture the Alliance?”

“Not anymore than joining the Empire, unfortunately.”

Edelgard’s fingers easily found the scab on her jaw again, and she ignored the soothing soprano voice from her memories that told her not to pick at it. 

“If Gloucester is so sympathetic to our cause, why not defect from the Alliance and join it?” Edelgard’s boldness blossomed as Lorenz squirmed under the weight of her words. “Is five years not enough time to properly evaluate your loyalties?”

Count Hevring let out a single laugh like shattered ice. “Not when the Ambassador from Gloucester can so plainly see how the Empire treats their own noble lands.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Edelgard felt the blood burst under her fingernail as she spat the words.

“Hevring is providing resources for a future that would strip those resources away.” The count scowled without blinking, and Edelgard marveled at how eyes so much like Linhardt’s could spell such bitter hostility. “How can we be sure that our loyalty will be rewarded once you dismantle the nobility and the crests that protect us?” 

“Your loyalty is certainly valued.” Edelgard forced the words through her teeth, her last remaining filter of decorum. “Once the war is won, we will assess your positions and appoint the most qualified—”

“I’ll remind you, Lady Edelgard, that _our_ sons—” he gestured toward Count Bergliez, “are fighting in _your_ war.”

Count Bergliez nodded aggressively in agreement and pounded the table with his fist. 

“And I will remind _you_ ,” Hubert tapped his fingertips on the table again, “That it is by the grace of Lady Edelgard that it is you two who sit at the comfort of this table, and not your sons.”

The two counts shot an anxious look in Ferdinand’s direction, then at each other. There was little information as to what became of the former Prime Minister, but the rumors were enough to frighten the Adrestian nobility into cautious fealty and debilitating paranoia. Count Bergliez shook his head. 

“This is preposterous. I am through being threatened by an inexperienced leader in an unchanging situation!” The vein in his forehead throbbed fiercely as he stood, shaking the table. “You speak of letting people rise on the basis of their merits, yet you silence those who question yours!”

Now it was Edelgard’s turn to rise. She gripped the edge of the table, knuckles paling as she suppressed the urge to climb on her chair and scream curses at the supercilious men.

“Then let us lay my merits on the table, shall we?” Edelgard caught Hubert’s smirk out of the corner of her eye. “Did I not prove my merits when I successfully infiltrated the monastery? Did I not prove them when I secured crest stones for the creation of demonic beasts at your disposal? When I led the assault on Garreg Mach five years ago—?”

“An assault that led to the loss of the Sword of the Creator, the disappearance of that professor, and a complete failure to capture the Archbishop.”

A chill whipped through the room as everyone’s uneasy eyes flitted to the imposing lord who so rarely spoke. 

Edelgard was suddenly very conscious of the sword’s location just three floors below them, locked in a nondescript chest and guarded by soldiers unaware of its contents. Ferdinand shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Edelgard silently prayed to a goddess she didn’t believe in that his distress wouldn’t raise Arundel’s suspicions. Hubert tapped her foot with his own, then stood to address the council. 

“That’s enough for tonight. We will reconvene in the morning over breakfast.” Everyone murmured empty objections, but stood to pack their belongings anyway. Only the Emperor and her uncle made no motion to leave, instead locked in a staring contest that was finally broken by the loud _clink_ of Lorenz setting his tea cup against the saucer. 

“Excellent tea, Lady Edelgard, as always.” He flashed a congenial smile that went unreciprocated and sauntered out of the room to discuss new blends with Ferdinand. Hubert frowned at the ambassador’s abandoned tea cup, still full of cooled liquid. 

The two counts left together, already hotly engaged in their nightly competition to boast of their sons’ achievements, and Ladislava only managed a short nod before hurrying to her quarters to send an evening report to General Randolph. 

The heat left the room and only Arundel, Edelgard, and Hubert remained. Edelgard felt her companion tense beside her as Arundel crossed to them, low voice barely above a hiss. 

“You’re losing control. Fix it. _Soon_.”

With a swish of his velvet cloak and a beam of black light, the lord vanished. Edelgard slumped in her chair, possessed only with the energy to stare straight ahead, peripherally aware of the faint clattering of porcelain beside her.

“Lady Edelgard.” She lolled her head toward Hubert, white bangs falling out of their secured clips and into her eyes. He held Lorenz’s teacup aloft, eyes narrowed on a folded scrap of parchment on the saucer. 

“Seems the Ambassador from Gloucester couldn’t resist having the final word.”

Edelgard leaned forward and snatched the paper, eyes widening as she frantically unfolded it and took in the ornamental, heliotrope script.

_Our golden friend wants to meet._

Edelgard emblazoned the words in her mind, flames reflecting in her pupils as she let the note burn to ash in her palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter title: “The Master Tactician”.
> 
> I promise we’ll finally hear more from Byleth next time too :)
> 
> Thank you all for being so patient, I know this chapter came out a little later than usual. Mine and my SO’s birthdays were crammed in the same week and a half, and things were a little wild at work for a bit. You can expect a more regular schedule of every ten days or so from here on out!
> 
> A huge thanks again to [tastyweeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastyweeds/pseuds/tastyweeds) for the beta, this chapter would not exist without you! 
> 
> @frackingfic on twitter if you want to be fe3h friends <3


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